Fish fillets with hoisin sauce

This is an old recipe, a Chinese classic, actually, except that the original Chinese recipe I came across with used pork. I even had an old entry of this recipe but after I transferred the old files to this new WordPress blog, I decided not to reproduce it yet because the photo was not too good. I was still using a 1.3 megapixel digital camera (my first digicam) at the time and the food blog was only about two months old then.

This dish of fish fillets with hoisin sauce was dinner about three nights ago. I used fillets of river cobbler, available frozen at the Price Smart membership shopping club. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a modified version of a classic Chinese dish called Szechuan pork. In the original recipe, freshly cracked Szechuan (sometimes spelled Sichuan) peppercorns were sprinkled over the cooked dish just before serving. Since my kids don’t like the texture of bits of peppercorns in their mouth, I always dispense with the peppercorn part.

The original recipe also used toasted sesame seeds, added towards the end of cooking time. When sesame seeds are available, I add some. Otherwise, I just drizzle a little sesame seed oil over the fish just before serving.

Ingredients :

600-700 grams of boneless fish fillets
salt and pepper
about a cup of flour
3-4 tbsps. of hoisin sauce (I use Lee Kum Kee)
3 c. of cooking oil for frying
about a teaspoonful of sesame seed oil or a tablespoonful of toasted sesame seeds

Cooking procedure :

Cut the fish fillets into smaller pieces, about 2 x 2 inches, and about half an inch thick. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan until it starts to smoke. Dredge each piece of fish fillet in flour, shaking off the excess. Deep fry in batches until a crisp crust forms. Drain on absorbent paper towels.

Pour off all the oil from the frying pan. Over very low heat, add the hoisin sauce and stir to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Return the fish fillets to the pan and toss to coat each piece with the hoisin sauce. Don’t take too long with this step because hoisin sauce burns fast. As soon as the fish fillets are evenly coated with the hoisin sauce, turn off the heat. If you’re using toasted sesame seeds, add them at this point and toss the fish fillets a few times for even distribution. Otherwise, transfer the fish fillets to a serving platter and drizzle with sesame seed oil.

Serve at one with hot rice.

[tags]Chinese+cooking, food+blog, hoisin+sauce[/tags]