Crisp pan-fried fish with a popular Szechuan twice flavoring method.

I have received this recipe request previously and I am so excited and happy to know that someone in my readers have tested this dish. It is not famous even outside Sichuan area. But it is a brilliant dish.
The method twice cooking comes from a classic Szechuan style double cooked or twice cooked pork belly “回锅肉”. In that dish, the pork belly is firstly cooked in water with some common ingredients and then re-cooked with Sichuan peppercorn, doubanjiang and other seasonings. Well cooked pork belly slices can absorb the taste from seasonings and create yummy taste with the help of the fat meat.

Fish has different attributes from pork. It can be cooked within a very short time and may break easily. So the first time cooking should be different too. There are two ways of treating the fish before stir-frying. One is deep-frying and the other is shallow frying. Deep-frying gives the fish pieces a very thick shell, which will further take the responsibility of taking the flavors in and keep the fish meat as tender as possible. This method is more popular in restaurants. However, shallow frying creates only a thin layer of skins, which allows the taste go inside. This one is more home cooking friendly. So I introduce shallow frying process this time.

Cook’s Note

Coating each piece of fish meat with starch might be quite time consuming and evening coating need higher skills. You can transfer the fish meat in a plastic bag and then slightly shake with starch. When well coated, let the fish pieces stand for 5- 10 minutes so the starch can absorb the water and become sticky, otherwise it escapes during any movement in the shallow frying process.

Ingredients

• 1 fish fillet, snakehead or other type you prefer
• 1 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp. sugar
• 5-6 ginger shreds
• cornstarch for coating

Stir-fry

• 1 tbsp. cooking oil
• 1 tbsp. doubanjiang
• 1 tbsp. fermented black beans, dou-chi
• 1 thumb ginger, sliced
• 2 gloves garlic, sliced
• 2 garlic sprouts, cut into small sections
• 3-4 long peppers, shredded
• 4-5 scallions
• 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
• pinch of salt

Steps

Cut the fish into pieces around 2cm thick. Add cooking wine, ginger shreds, soy sauce, salt and sugar and massage for 1 minutes. Set aside and marinade for 10 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup of cornstarch in a bag and place the fish fillet in. Slightly shake until every piece of fish is well coated with the cornstarch. Then stand for 5-10 minutes.

Prepare a shallow pan and add 1/4 cup of oil and shallow fry the fish pieces until hardened and golden brown on surface. Transfer out.

Leave around 1 tablespoon of oil in the pan, slow down the fire and fry doubanjiang for 1 minutes until the red turns red. Add garlic, ginger and dou-chi and fry until aromatic.

Place chili peppers, scallion sections and garlic sprouts in. Fry until almost soft and return the fish, add light soy sauce and salt. Mix well. Serve immediately.