So it’s just two days until my holiday and I’m so excited about going travelling again. Sadly we don’t have time to go for long but we’re spending 10 days in Taipei then 4 days in Bali. I’ve never been to Bali but I’m super excited about it.

Recently I’ve been sorting out recipes that I’ve learned at work. While working at a previous restaurant that I prefer not to name (I don’t want to give the bastards any credit) I had the pleasure of working alongside two Italian chefs. One of them is a really good friend called Lorenzo, who is from Verona, who we visited in Granada last year. I also met another Italian chef, this time from Sicily who taught me how to make another kind of focaccia.

Both told me that different regions of Italy cook focaccia completely differently. For example, Lorenzo cooks focaccia with milk while the Sicilian chef uses white wine. Lorenzo sadly never gave me a recipe for focaccia (I can’t remember if I forgot to ask or if he forgot to give me a recipe) but I did get the white wine focaccia recipe.

I made a fairly major adjustment to this focaccia by including chorizo on top. Regardless of whether you use chorizo or not focaccia is really delicious, easily one of my favourite types of bread, but I love chorizo so used it.

I also fancied having a go at making a completely different kind of focaccia. Squid ink is pretty hard to get hold of in the UK and I wanted to have a go at making squid ink pasta but never got round to it. Firstly I need a pasta machine but also delivery of the squid ink took ages! Recently I found the squid ink in my cupboard and thought I would try making this squid ink, rosemary and garlic focaccia. As a note squid ink doesn’t have a taste but acts as an amazing dye in food.

So anyway, hope you enjoy this recipe and I’ll no doubt put more recipe on this blog when I come back from holiday. While we’re in Taiwan I plan to visit a lot of restaurants, both familiar and new, and will be doing a few restaurant reviews when we come back. Also if I can get my damn laptop to work again (long story!) I’ll try to post some pictures while on holiday).

Ingredients for Chorizo and Spring Onion Focaccia:

30g yeast
175ml water
1 tablespoon sugar
150ml olive oil
150ml white wine
175ml water
1kg of white bread flour
15g of salt
1 decent sized chorizo sausage cut into 0.5cm slices
1 spring onions chopped finely

Ingredients for Squid Ink, Rosemary and Garlic Focaccia:

30g yeast

175ml water
1 tablespoon sugar
150ml olive oil
150ml white wine
175ml water
1kg of white bread flour
15g of salt
5g squid ink
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Procedure:

1. Put yeast, sugar and 175ml water into a large bowl and leave it for 15 minutes (don’t mix yet).
2. Add olive oil, white wine and another 175ml of water into another bowl.
3. After 15 minutes mix the mixture from step 1 with the flour and salt and leave for 20 minutes. Cover this mixture/bowl with a damp kitchen cloth to stop the mixture from drying out.
4. After 20 minutes mix everything apart from the chorizo together and use your hands to need the dough and the mixture has a softness but elasticity to it. Cover with a damp kitchen cloth and find somewhere warm and leave for 30 minutes for it to rise.
5. After 30 minutes put the dough into a rectangle shaped baking tray and you can put your chorizo on top of the dough. Preheat the oven at 190C and bake the bread for 20-30 minutes until cooked. The times are approximate depending on your oven. For example a home oven will take approximately 30 minutes while a professional oven takes 20 minutes.

Note: Both Focaccia’s are made in the same way but for the squid ink, rosemary and garlic focaccia of course don’t add chorizo. Otherwise mix all of the ingredients together as per the steps.

Time to prepare: Approximately 2 hours
Serves:                4 people per Focaccia (it’s quite big)

Credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

It’s only 12 days now and I’m going back home for two weeks. I try to go back to my home country, Taiwan, once every couple of years so I can catch up with friends, see my family, do some shopping and perhaps most importantly have a rest.

I’m especially desperate to go home this time as two of my relatives died last year but I wasn’t able to go back. So with this in mind I’m making food that I regularly eat in Taiwan.

This recipe, called Prawn and Scallop Shumai doesn’t have a story behind but even though it originates from China it’s a popular dish in Taiwan. If you remember some time I made another kind of shumai which contained glutinous rice and I’ve been wanting to make another kind of shumai since then.

Shumai itself is basically dim sum, but with a different name. They can be made really quickly and you can put whatever you like inside but for this recipe I chose one of my favourite things which is scallops.

I have bit of a love hate relationship with scallops. I really like the taste of scallops but one of my regular jobs in my chef job is to empty live scallops from their shells. For anyone that’s opened a scallop before you’ll know that can have a nasty bite to them but nonetheless they’re really tasty.

Hope you enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients:

300g of scallops
225g of prawns (keep 10 prawns for garnishing the shumai afterwards)
1 pack of shumai pastry (available from Chinese supermarket)
1 spring onion
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper powder
Couple drops of sesame oil

Procedure for shumai:

1. Use a food processor to blend all of the ingredients.
2. Put the filling use a teaspoon into the fillings as shown in the procedure photos below.
3. Cut the ten spare prawns in half and then place one on top of each shumai.
4. Steam the shumai for around 15 minutes.
5. It’s now ready to serve. Shumai can be eaten on it’s own or you can dip it in some soy sauce.

Time to prepare:   1 hour
Makes:                  Approximately 20 shumai

Photo credit: All of the photos in this post were taken by: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Recently I’ve been busy doing a series of speeches in Glasgow for Chinese New Year. I was asked by www.ricefield.org which is based in the trendy Trongate building in central Glasgow if I could present some speeches as part of their celebrations for Chinese New Year.
These have now finished, spring is coming and I can now focus properly on my blog once again. I’m also going back to Taiwan for a couple weeks at the end of March which I’m super excited about.
Today I felt like making a roll and while I didn’t want to do sushi I wanted to make something that looks fairly similar.  This recipe doesn’t have a story about it but it has a delicious egg skin filled with squid, carrots and regular seasonings.
This dish is light to eat but tastes really good if you like squid.
Hope you enjoy this recipe. I’ll also be doing another Western recipe in the next couple of weeks, this time a Focaccia, so keep an eye on my site for that.

Ingredients for filling:

270g squid
1 egg white
1 small sized carrot
1 spring onion
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper powder
Couple drops of sesame oil

Ingredients for egg skin:

1 egg yolk from the egg that we got the egg white
3 whole eggs
2 teaspoon potato starch or corn flour
1 tablespoon of water

Other ingredients:

150g of spinach to wrap between the layers as explained in the procedure

Procedure for filling:

1. Remove the skin and insides from the squid and give it a thorough clean
2. Cut the squid into small dices and chop up in a food processor until the mixture is fine
3. Add the egg white, salt, pepper powder and sesame powder and blend for another couple of minutes.
4. Chop the carrots and spring onion. Mix with the mixture from the previous steps evenly. Leave aside for later

Procedure for egg skin:

1. Mix all of the ingredients together and heat up a frying pan with a couple drops of oil. Fry the eggs as you would do when making a crepe (the skin should be quite thin).
2. An important part of the procedure is to make sure the potato starch or corn flour has been mixed with the one tablespoon of water before it’s added to the egg mixture. This is to stop the potato starch having lumps.

Procedure for wrapping:

1. Blanche the spinach, rinse under cold water and squeeze out as much water as you can but don’t squeeze so much as to damage the shape of the leaves.
2. Lay out the spinach on the egg skin as the photo below shows.
3. Spread the squid mixture evenly on top of the spinach as the photos below show.
4. Roll the egg skin, spinach and squid filling and cover with cling film. Roll the cling film on the counter or chopping board a few times to make sure the roll has been rolled evenly.
5. Use a steamer to steam the rolls (including the cling film) for around 20 minutes.
6. Once steamed cool the rolls in a fridge or leave aside. Once cooled chop into suitable sized shapes. I wanted to mimick sushi with my rolls so I chopped everything about the same size as I would do with sushi (each slide is maybe 1.5cm wide.
7. It’s now ready to eat.

Time to prepare: 2 hours
Makes:                 2 large wraps (approximately 13-15 pieces each)

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Something my husband’s colleagues keep asking for is chicken satay. They are fully aware that I’m a chef and they’ve tried many of my dishes, including chow mein, salad boat sandwich, shenjiangbao and even thai green curry but they keep asking for satay.

I must highlight chicken satays are NOT Chinese or Taiwanese foods, they come from Indonesia. However in the UK if you ever go to one of the popular Chinese buffets or takeaways, doesn’t matter which one, you’ll nearly always find chicken satays on the menu. I understand these restaurants and takeaways want to cater for a lot of tastes but again satays aren’t Chinese or Taiwanese.

I do however like eating chicken satays and while this satay recipe probably isn’t like a traditional satay this is the way I like to make them.

I also made a pickled vegetable salad to go with this satay recipe. I’m not a big salad person but this salad is both sweet and sour and suits these satays ideally.

Chicken Satay Ingredients:

2 tablespoons soy sauce
450g chicken fillet or breast
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon pepper powder
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon Chinese barbeque sauce
2 teaspoon white sesame paste
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon chopped spring onion
1 teaspoon ground garlic
1/2 teaspoon turmic

Pickled Vegetable Salad Ingredients:

½ teaspoon sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon peppercorns
2 bay leafs
1 cup rice vinegar
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2-3 shallots
3-4 raddish’s
1 carrot
1 bowl of mixed salad leaves

Procedure for Satays:

1. Marinade chicken fillets with all of the seasonings and store in a fridge to marinade for at least 1 hour
2. Char grill or barbeque the satays (I used a griddle pan for this recipe)

Procedure for Pickled Vegetable Salad:

1. Peel the shallots and carrots.
2. Slice the shallots and raddish as thinly as you can but only as comfortable as you can. Shred the carrots.
3. Boil all of the seasonings from the sichuan pepper to the sugar.
4. After the seasonings have boiled turn off the fire and add all of the vegetables. Leave it aside to cool down.
5. The dish is now ready to serve but if you want to you can mix the salad with mixed salad leaves.

Time to prepare: 1.5 hours
Serves:                3-4 people

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

As promised in my first blog of the year I’ve decided to start adding Western foods to my website. Some of the foods I have learnt through working as a chef, some through friends or family, and some have been influenced by my travels.

Today I’m sharing a recipe for Spanish Chickpea, Chorizo and Prawn Soup. When I travelled to Madrid last year we went to a really famous market called Mercado de San Miguel which offers really beautiful foods and at a couple places that offered food that can be compared to fine dining. We tried a Prawn and Egg on toast dish, which Chris really liked, but our favourite thing was a Spanish soup called “Garbanzos con Langostinos Y Jamon”. This fabulous dish costs 10 Euros a bowl and consisted of a tomato soup with chickpeas, jamon and langoustines.

I personally don’t like copying recipes exactly so here is my variation of this dish. I put chorizo in it instead of Jamon, so it’s a bit spicier and the taste is richer and I used prawns instead of langoustines. As much as I like langoustines they’re a bit difficult to get hold of, even in Scotland!

If you travel to Madrid I really recommend travelling to this market. I’ve included a few pictures of the market below and trust me the food there is beautiful but I hope you enjoy my recipe also.

Ingredients:

1 medium sized onion
450g of freshly chopped tomatoes
400g of tinned tomatoes
2 small carrots, diced
800g of tinned chickpeas
1 clove garlic
150g of chorizo
225g of prawns
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
1 litre of stock (you can use chicken or vegetable stock)
1 pinch of saffron

Procedure:

1. Chop the onion and garlic finely then heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a stock pan
2. Sauté the onion and garlic first. Sweat these in the pan then add the carrots and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the freshly chopped tomatoes and rosemary and sauté for another 2-3 minutes. Then add the tinned tomatoes and 1 litre of stock. Bring to the boil then simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the chickpeas from their packaging and rinse under cold water to refresh them. Cut the chorizo into thin slices and remove the shells from the prawns.
5. After 30 minutes puree the soup with a pinch of saffron to add colour and leave aside.
6. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a normal pan and sauté the chorizo first until the fat from the chorizo comes out. Once the fat starts to come out of the chorizo add the chickpeas and mix together. Keep mixing/frying for 3 minutes to let the chickpeas blend their flavour with the chorizo.
7. Combine the chickpeas and chorizo with the soup in a suitable size stockpot and simmer for another 30 minutes.
8. Add the prawns and cook for another five minutes (the prawns should only take about 5 minutes to cook) then it’s ready to serve. Season with salt and pepper to suit you taste. I used some rosemary to garnish the dish but that’s entirely optional.

Credit: A number of these photos and the final photos for this dish were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Mustard Green Chicken Soup is one of our traditional Taiwanese New Year dishes. The long stalk from the vegetable represents long life and it’s simply a great dish for Chinese New Year.

The Mustard Green vegetable is also known as Brassica Juncea. It’s a kind of mustard plant that not only Chinese people use in their food but also Indian. It has a very unique taste that has a kind of horseradish-mustard flavour. Another thing worth mentioning about Mustard Green is it’s healthy benefits.

Mustard Green contains high levels of Vitamin K, C and A as well as being a good source of folic acid. Mustard Green also provides a rich source of anti-oxidants and flavonoids which can help the body prevent prostate, breast, colon and ovarian cancers.

Regular consumption of mustard greens in the diet is known to prevent arthritis, osteoporosis, iron deficiency, anaemia and is believed to protect from cardiovascular diseases, asthma and colon and prostate cancers.

I love drinking hot soup in the winter. Maybe it’s me but this winter seems to have been particularly long so whenever I get a chance I make a hot soup. It’s comfortable, warm and keeps your whole body warm during the winter.

Last week I had a speech about eating Chinese food in Glasgow as part a Chinese New Year festival and one of the foods I was promoting was soup.

SOUP is a really important part of Chinese cuisine. Chinese and Taiwanese soups are completely different to western soups. A lot of western soups are cooked using butter and cream but we like to think of our soup as art.

In Chinese cooking, we use many different ingredients for soup but our soups are seasonal and also medicinal. If I’m sick with flu for example, I like to add a bit of ginger in my soup. A lot of Chinese people will also put different kinds of Chinese medicine in their soups to maintain their bodies and improve their health. As you can tell, it’s very different with Chinese cooking. A good soup can be healthy, filling, good for your belly, improve your stamina and strengthen your health.

So this mustard green chicken soup not only has a great meaning but is really great for your health. It’s a really supern dish to start your New Year with.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken cut it into pieces.
800g mustard green, cut into 3~5cm lengthway.
3 pieces ginger
Salt
Pepper

Procedures:

1. Blanch the chicken and rinse under cold water to give it a quick wash. This process gets rid of any unpleasantness from the chicken
2. Put the chicken into a stockpot and add ginger. Add water until the contents of the stockpot are covered. Boil it first then simmer for 1 and half hour.
3. Check the chicken meat is soft and put the mustard green into the soup to cook along with the chicken. Season the soup and it’s ready to serve.

Serves:       4 people
Cook time: 2 hour

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

I hope everyone had a great Chinese new year this year. After I introduced you to a few Chinese New Year dishes and explained why we have those dishes for our Chinese New Year dinner. I realized after writing these that I didn’t tell you about the origins of Chinese New Year.

I think there are many different stories behind it but my favorite one is about “monster Nian”.

We believe Chinese New Year started in ancient China when an evil monster called Nian who had a head like a lion and a body as strong as a bull, lived in the deepest ocean but every January or February he would leave the ocean and damage villages and kill animals and people. Everybody was really suffering because of this but the villagers then thought about a plan to stop Nian. They found Nian was sensitive towards fire, strong lighting, red colour and loud noises. So the villagers started wearing red clothes, stuck red paper on their doors, played with fire crackers and they were successful. Nian was terrified and stopped attacking the villages.

The people were so happy that they had got rid of Nian that every year around January/February they would have a big celebration with their family and friends. They and indeed we celebrate by wearing red clothes, shooting firecrackers, eating and drinking and partying all night.

This is the origin of Chinese New Year.

After the origin of Chinese new year. The recipe today is a Taiwanese dessert that we will usually eat or use it to pray to Buddha and hope he will bring us a good year. This dessert in Chinese is called “發糕 Fa-Gao”. It has meaning of “promotion” so we believe if you eat this cake you will receive a promotion this year. Here is my recipe for this Taiwanese dessert “發糕”. I hope you like it.

Ingredients:

320g rice flour
100g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
180g brown sugar or caster sugar
360g water
1 bunch dried barriers
1 tablespoon strawberry jam
1 teaspoon red food coloring

Procedure:

1. Mix all the ingredients together evenly and leave it aside for 20 minutes.
2. Place 4~5 small bowls in steamer and steam it with full gas power for 5~8 minutes.
3. Place cup cake paper into small bowls and fill the cup cake paper until 90% full with the mixture.
4. Steam it for 30 minutes and don’t open the cover or lid or the Fa gao 發糕 won’t rise up.

* The other photo shows the original flavor of Fa gao. All you need to do is just don’t put any dried berries, strawberry jam and red food coloring into the recipe.

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

As you can probably tell from a lot of my posts I really love seafood and today I wanted to make a squid dish. I named this dish “Fortune Squid Blossom” because a flower blossom is regarded as a lucky thing in Chinese culture. Flowers in full bloom symbolize affluence and nobility.

As my previous post talked about there are no strict rules for Chinese new year dishes as long as they are pretty, well presented, taste good but most importantly have a lucky meaning. If a dish has all of these, then you have a great dish for your Chinese new year dinner.

I used part of a body of a squid for making the squid flowers and used the rest of the squid for making the fillings in the middle. I used an egg white when I made the filling but I kept the egg yolk for the steamed egg base. One medium sized squid can make around two squid flowers. Blance the squid flower in boiling for around 5 seconds only and definitely don’t over cook or the squid will turn really chewy.

It is important to not waste any food or ingredients. I always remember the first day I started leaning cooking at college and the teacher always taught us “Don’t waste any food or ingredients!!!”.

Here is my recipe for this Chinese New Year dish called “Fortune Squid Blossom”. I hope you will enjoy it.

Ingredients for squid flower:

1 medium size whole squid
200g prawn
1 egg white
Some carrot and spring onion as garnish

Seasoning for filling:

½ teaspoon rice wine
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper powder
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon potato starch

Ingredients for steamed egg:

1 egg
1 egg yolk
½ cup stock
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper powder

Ingredients for sauce:

1 cup stock
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon potato starch water (1/2 teaspoon potato starch mix with 1 tablespoon cold water.)

Procedures:

1. Cut the squid into a flower shape as the photos show. Blanch in boiling salted water for no more than 5 seconds. Soak in cold water afterwards to cool it down.
2. Process rest of the squid and prawn with all the seasonings.
3. Rub some potato starch on the squid flower and put some of the processed squid and prawns from step 2 in the middle.
4. Steamed it at full gas power for 8 minutes.
5. Mix all the steamed egg ingredients evenly and pour into a soup plate, steamed for 3~5 minutes.
6. Place the steamed squid flower on top of step 5. Boil 1 cup of stock with 1 teaspoon soy sauce and stir in 1 tablespoon potato starch and water to thick the sauce. Pour the sauce on top of squid flower and steamed egg. It’s now ready to serve.

Serves:                      2 people (based on squid flower each)
Cooking time:         30 minutes

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Eight Treasures Rice Pudding is a traditional Chinese new year pudding. Eight treasures topping is made up with eight different kind of dried fruits, raisin and sweets. You can choose any ingredients which are easy for you to buy. Of course, you don’t have to use “eight” different toppings but the number of toppings you use is really down to personal preference.

I used five different kinds of toppings today because I only a small rice pudding for Chris and I. If I were to use eight different kinds of toppings for a rice pudding this size it would look a bit of a mess

The number eight is a magic number for Chinese people. In Chinese the number eight sounds like another Chinese word “發”. 發 in Chinese means rich and I believe everybody likes being rich.  So, eight is a lucky number. Also, this dessert is really colourful and pretty so Chinese people love to have this dessert in Chinese New Year.

China has so many different provinces and different provinces also have different traditions. Whether you go to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore or even Malaysia, although we all celebrate Chinese New Year the customs are different. Sometimes it’s really hard to say which Chinese dish is a typical Chinese New Year dish but I always say as long as the dish is petty, colourful and has a lucky or pretty name then it’s a good Chinese New Year dish.

Here is recipe for this eight treasures rice pudding. I wish all of you have a great Chinese new year and I hope you will give my recipe a go and make eight treasures rice pudding for your friends and family. Trust me, they’ll love it.

Ingredients:

Handful of sugar glazed cherries
Handful of black raisins
Handful of yellow raisins
Handful of sugar lotus seeds (available in Chinese supermarket)
1 dried apricot
2 cups of “round” glutinous rice
100g red bean paste (available in Chinese supermarket)

Seasonings:

1 tablespoon sunflower oil
¼ teaspoon salt

Ingredients for sugar syrup:

1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon honey
½ cup water
2 tablespoon potato starch water (1/2 teaspoon potato starch with 1 tablespoon water and mix evenly )
Couple drops of rose or any kind of flower essence.

In some traditional eight treasures rice pudding recipes, it says use “sweet-scented osmanthus sauce” but it’s very difficult to get in UK so I use rose essence to replace it.

Procedures:

1. Soak round glutinous rice in cold water for 1 hour at least. Cook it in a rice cooker or steamer. Mix the cooked rice with sunflower oil and salt when it’s still hot.
2. Brush some oil on a medium size bowl and cut the sugar glazed cherry in half. Place the dried fruits and sugar glazed cherries as shown in the photos.
3. Put half of the cooked glutinous rice in the bowl and press down a little bit then put 100g red bean paste in the middle.
4. Use a little bit of glutinous rice to cover the red bean paste and place the sugar lotus seeds and sugar glazed cherries around the bowl.
5. Put all of the glutinous rice in the bowl and press down. Steam for 30 minutes.
6. Use a small pot to boil all the ingredients for the sugar syrup. Stir in potato starch water to thicken the syrup.
7. Flip the rice pudding on a plate and brush sugar syrup on top. Ready to serve.

2. Brush some oil on a medium size bowl and cut the sugar glazed cherry in half. Place the dried fruits and sugar glazed cherries as shown in the photos.

3. Put half of the cooked glutinous rice in the bowl and press down a little bit.

Put 100g red bean paste in the middle.

4. Use a little bit of glutinous rice to cover the red bean paste and place the sugar lotus seeds and sugar glazed cherries around the bowl

Serves:              3~4 people
Cooking time: 1 hour

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Chili bean paste fish and tofu is the name of this Chinese fish dish.  This dish is also my first recipe for this Chinese new year. A lot of people probably don’t know when Chinese New Year is this year but it’s actually the 2^nd of February. People from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan will usually celebrate from this day and celebrations will go on for about a week. In

In Chinese language we call Chinese new year eve “除夕” (Chu xi). All of our families will gather together, wear new shoes and wear new clothes. We usually wear red and then we’ll have a large new year dinner together. We call this new year dinner “年夜飯” (Nian ye fan).

Fish is one of the dishes that we must have for new year dinner. Fish in Chinese is called “yu” and it sounds similar to the word “餘” which means “more than enough, spare”. We usually call the fish dish in New year supper “Nian nian you yu 年年有餘”, The whole phrase means “every year have some good things happen and/or money left. Or every year have more than enough money or luck”.

Different families have different traditions for this fish dish for New Year dinner. In my family, we can’t finish this fish in one go. We must leave some fish on the plate, we can’t eat all of it. This is because we believe leaving some fish will bring us luck and money, which also means more than enough money or luck. My grandfather told me, in his navy friend’s home, they can’t turn over the fish because the method for turning over fish looks like a ship or boat capsizing, which of course no-one and especially a navy officer doesn’t want to see.

There is no strict rule of how to cook “Nian Nian you yu” (this dish) for Chinese New Year. You can use any kind of fish you want so long as it’s a whole fish that includes it’s head and tail. I know you’re probably wondering why it has to be a whole fish but using a whole fish represents you doing everything from start to finish and not just doing something halfway.

For this dish I decided to cook Dou Ban Yu. Dou Ban Yu is a really tasty Sichuan style fish dish that can be as spicy as you like but has a really strong taste typical of Sichuan cooking. The most important thing is the red colour from the chilli bean paste (sauce). As mentioned before red is a very good colour for Chinese New Year.

The English translation for Dou Ban Yu is “Chili Bean Paste Fish” and here is my recipe for this dish. I hope you enjoyed reading about this dish and maybe you could give it a go this Chinese New Year.

Ingredients:

1 whole fish, I use sea bass today.
2 thin pieces of ginger, chop finely
2 spring onions, chop finely
3 cloves of garlic, chop finely
½ chilli, remove seed and chop finely
50g beef or pork mince
350g Tofu, cut into the size as the photo shown, panfry both sides

Cut the tofu into the size as this photo shows.

Pan fry both side.

Seasonings:

1 ½ tablespoon chilli bean paste (sauce)
2 tablespoons rice wine
1 litter of boil water or boil vegetable stock
½ teaspoon ketchup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
¼ teaspoon rice vinegar

Procedures:

1. Remove all the dirty bites of fish as procedures photo. This procedure ensures the fish tastes better and removes any unpleasant fishy taste.
   

   Clean all the dirty bites of fish for the better taste.

   

   Use a teaspoon to remove all the dirty bites.

2. Cut the fish as the photo shows and use your finger to rub some chilli bean paste into those cuts and inside the fish belly. Leave it aside for 15 minutes after you have done that.
   

   Cut the fish as the photo shows.

   

   Use your finger to rub some chilli bean paste into those cuts

   

   Use your finger to rub some of chili bean paste inside of fish belly.

3. Heat a wok with 1 tablespoon of oil and panfry both sides of the fish. Leave each side to fry for 2~3 minutes at least, don’t keep turning the fish or you will just make a mess of the fish. Place the fish on a plate after both sides are a golden brown colour.
   

   Pan fry both side of fish until it's golden brown color.

4. Using the wok from step 3, stir-fry the chilli bean paste first for a couple minutes then add the mince to fry it for another 2 to 3 minutes.
   

   Stir fry chili bean paste for couple minutes.

   

   Add mince and keep stir fry for another 2~3 minutes.

5. Add rice wine, chilli, ginger, garlic and just half of a spring onion into the wok and stir-fry it until all the fragrance comes out from the wok. Put the fish back in the wok and add the boiled water or stock to cook.
   

   Add chilli, ginger, garlic and just half of a spring onion into the wok and stir-fry it until all the fragrance comes out from the wok.

   

   Put the fish back in the wok and add the boiled water or stock to cook.

   

   Add boiled stock or water into fish and bring it to boil again.

6. Add tofu and simmer it to reduce down the sauce.
   

   Add tofu and simmer it to reduce down the sauce.

Add all the seasonings and mix evenly. Place tofu and fish on a plate and sprinkle the rest of the spring onion on the top as garnish. It’s now ready to serve.

7. Place tofu and fish on a plate and sprinkle the rest of the spring onion on the top as garnish. It’s now ready to serve.

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com