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(gentle upbeat music)
(woman speaking Chinese)
- Hello there, welcome back to another episode
of Anime with Alvin where today I'll be taking on
the challenge of making the blooming fish
from a Chinese animation, "Cinderella Chef".
Now, in the show, she calls it a squirrel fish
which is actually a real dish in Chinese cooking.
But based on her preparation, this could
either be Squirrel Fish, or (speaking Chinese),
also known as Coral Fish,
a slightly more difficult variation.
And because I enjoy challenge
I will be doing the latter.
Either way, the end results should be a beautifully fried
and sauced fish that looks like it is blooming.
This is an extremely difficult dish to prepare correctly,
as it requires an extremely high level
of (speaking Chinese) or knife skills
from the chef.
I have here a whole black sea bass
which I'm going to start by attempting to filet this.
This is my first time ever trying to filet
or butcher a fish.
So a lot of mistakes will be made.
Ow.
After watching a few YouTube videos,
I've gathered that fileting a fish usually begins
by making incisions on the tail,
sliding a thin knife, or a cleaver in this case,
across the spine and towards the head.
And I gotta say, people really make it
look easy in the videos.
Like Gordon Ramsey fileting that huge
salmon filet, but this is hard.
And usually at this point
I'd be feeling pretty nervous about this dish.
But thankfully Kendall managed to pick up some
already fileted sea bass from the fishmongers themselves.
You can clearly see that there's a huge gap between
my knife skills and an expert fishmonger's knife skills.
So if you can, I suggest you ask your fishmonger
to filet your fish and de-bone it for you.
And make sure to leave them a big tip.
Now onto the step that turns this into a blooming fish,
the crosshatch pattern.
This begins with the nearly impossible task
of making an incision at around a 20 degree angle,
less than a quarter inch thick
from the flesh all the way down to the skin,
but not slicing through.
This step now must be repeated across the entire filet
with no flesh breaking and the knife staying steady
the whole time you're cutting.
And if any flesh rips, or if the skin tears,
that's an ugly mistake you can't fix.
This dish is about literally exposing your
(speaking Chinese) for the world to see.
I've watched a couple of videos
about how to make the Coral Fish
and apparently it gets even harder from here.
One of those videos that I referenced is
from a Chinese cooking channel called Wang Gang.
He's actually made a really popular video
about this exact same dish.
And not surprisingly his (speaking Chinese)
is magnificent.
So I'm taking huge inspiration
and instruction from his video for our dish.
After I've done my best to cut the flaps across the fish.
The next step is to cut thin strips out of each flap,
starting from the base where the flesh attaches to the skin.
This is actually more difficult than it seemed
because at least the fish I'm using does not have
very firm flesh, making it very easy to drag and tear.
The thinner the strips, the more beautiful the end product
but also the more dangerous the risk of tearing becomes.
Which definitely happened a couple times.
After I finished crosshatching to the best of my ability,
which took about like 30 minutes,
I'm gonna give it a quick rinse in a water bath
and press it dry with a towel.
This helps clean the fish and also turn it
into somewhat of a sponge for flavor and seasoning.
Meanwhile, I'm heating up a wok full of oil to 350 degrees.
Hello!
Now that our fish has dried,
I'm laying our filets in a tray
filled with a couple tablespoons of
(speaking Chinese) or cooking wine
and a tablespoon of salt.
Marinating in cooking wine and salt
is a common technique used in Chinese cooking
to simultaneously season and counteract the pungency
or fishiness from meat or fish.
The important part here is to make sure
that the marinade coats and touches
every single strip in the fish filets.
The patted dry fish will take about five minutes
to soak up that marinade.
So I'll prepare the breading in the meantime,
a one to two ratio of corn starch and potato starch.
Might have gone a little overboard here
but hey, you know what they say,
"You can never have too much sand at the beach."
And just like at the beach, it is important to get sand
in every single crack and crevice,
whether you like it or not.
I'm gonna delicately try and push the starch
into each strip of fish, attempting not to break it.
I broke, I broke the fish.
I hate the beach.
After a stressful five minutes,
our oil is up to temperature
and our fish is ready to fry.
This kind of looks like an accordion.
This next step is very dangerous.
The recipe calls for the fish to be held at both ends
and slowly dipped into the hot oil,
but held right above the oil so that the fish
does not touch the bottom before it gets a chance
to crisp up and solidify.
If the fish is not held, and dropped into the pan,
the strips will hit the bottom and curl up
turning this into a curling fish, not a blooming fish.
This means that your hands are in a lot of danger.
So I have to legally tell you that you should not do this.
But when your sixth sense tells you
that the fish is ready to be dropped,
you drop it.
And watch before your very eyes
as the strips start to bloom.
Once the entire fish reaches a light golden brown
I'm taking it out, resting it on a rack,
and repeating the same process with the other filet,
slowly submerging it into the hot oil,
and just when I can't hold it anymore-
oh, it broke.
That's okay.
I'll find a way to fix that.
I always do.
Once the fried fish filets are taken out
I'm also frying the tail and the head.
This is important to the final dish
because not only does it serve as a presentation factor
but it also serves as a test
to who at the table is badass enough to go for 'em.
Once all the fish has been fried
it's important to work quickly on the sauce
so that the fish does not get soggy.
In a medium sauce pan, I'm combining 300 grams of ketchup,
40 grams of white vinegar, 120 grams of sugar,
and two teaspoons of kosher salt.
Stirring until it starts to reduce.
Hey why are you jumping at me?
Once it's been bubbling for a while,
I'm adding in half a cup of water to dilute.
And once the sauce has come back up to temperature,
I'm adding in around two tablespoons
of a corn starch slurry, which is made by
a one to one ratio of corn starch and water
used to thicken sauces in Chinese cooking.
And to finish, two tablespoons of a neutral oil
to add a beautiful glossy sheen to the sauce.
Now we gotta plate fast or the fish will not be crispy.
Arranging the filets side by side
so that the blooming coral pattern faces upward.
We're gonna also arrange the tail on one end
and the head on the other so that any prospective diners
know immediately that this is a fish dish.
Not skipping a beat, we're pouring the sauce directly on top
trying to cover each crack and crevice
with that beautiful red glaze.
I actually didn't thin out my sauce enough.
It should be a very thin sauce that barely clings
to the fish, but hey, what can you do?
I think the weight of my thicker sauce caused
some of those fish strips to sort of fall.
So we're gonna wrap this up pretty quickly.
A few leaves of parsley, and I present to you
my first attempt at the (speaking Chinese)
or Coral Fish from Cinderella Chef.
A whole fish that has been crosshatched, breaded,
fried, and coated in a sweet and sour sauce.
Clearly my knife skills leave a lot to be desired.
But I gotta say, this is pretty fun to eat.
You pull off a little french fry of fish
that already has sauce on it.
And you just put it in your mouth.
And it tastes solid, like fried fish
in a sweet and sour sauce.
But if you wanna watch an expert make this dish,
I highly suggest you check out Chef Wang Gang's video.
I mean, the way he does it, beautiful.
His channel is filled with amazing and authentic
Chinese cooking that I grew up with.
So watching his videos is both inspiring
and nostalgic at the same time.
Peace.
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(light upbeat music)