hey everyone welcome to Pai's kitchen today for the first time in the history of Pai's kitchen
I am sharing with you one of my mother-in-law's recipe so this dish is sort of her signature dish
she makes it all the time and it's my husband's favorite way to have fish it's a pretty classic
dish too it's steamed fish with black bean sauce and it's just one of those things that's
really quick simple and healthy so it's a perfect family-friendly weeknight meal let's get started
so the fish that my mother-in-law uses for this is always black cod also known as sable fish or in
Thai this would be Blackie Mac because it's super oily and tender and just works beautifully but you
can also use any other tender mild flavored white fish like ling cod works really well too so just
some a couple of steaks about an inch thick okay so we'll let that sit for now and then I'm going
to make the fish sauce but without fish sauce you're about to see so in the plate then you're
going to use to steam the fish okay so it's got to be heat proof and it's got to have some depth
to it because when you steam there's gonna be all sorts of liquid collected so nothing that's
completely flat so I've got some soy sauce going in here and some Chinese cooking wine and this
is my own little addition that's a little more complexity I'm some sugar to balance out the salt
and some white pepper and then I'm just gonna give this a stir to get most of the sugar dissolved it
doesn't have to be completely dissolved and you know this dish is a pretty classic dish
and everyone's got a slightly different way of doing it so if you make a fish with black beans
and you've got a different method share with us in the comments below we'd love to know how
you make it okay so now the fish is gonna go in there I'm just gonna put that in there and then
give it a flip yeah that in there give it a flip and you know what I'm gonna do I'm going to move
them so they are diagonal to the plate because that's just prettier looking so I'm gonna let
this marinate in the fridge 15 minutes on one side I'm gonna give it a flip let it marinate
another 15 minutes on the other side meanwhile let's make all the other stuff that's gonna go
on top so let's talk black beans here so this is Chinese black beans which is actually soy beans
that have been fermented and they turn black in the process they're quite salty it's really widely
available at any Asian grocery stores I have given this a rinse so I just put it in a little strainer
and run some water through it to wash all sort of the excess salt it reduces the saltiness a
little bit okay so now that you've got that I am going to chop it in to create sort of a mixture
with some garlic and ginger so I've chopped some garlic and ginger here put these in and chop away
and I should have picked a bigger cutting board yes but this one's so cute
okay so that's really all you're going for you're just getting the beans to break up into
small chunks and get it all mixed up a little bit nice and easy all right so then the fish is done
marinating and by the way you can put more black beans or less black beans with your first time
maybe use a little less cuz it does have a bit of a funky smell you might not be used to some
people like more intense you can put more but just be careful it's salty so the more you put
the saltier it's gonna be so if you like more black beans maybe cut down on the soy sauce a
little and so now I'm just gonna put this paste on the fish not really a pace this crumble it's
like a crumb topping on the fish and just press it on give it a final douse you don't have to
do this I just just makes me feel better to do it okay whoo and one more thing this is
again my own little trick so I yeah I modified my mother-in-law recipe a little bit just gonna
add some extra ginger in the sauce just cuz I like that extra ginger flavor because I'm this
way as the fish steamed the ginger will steam right into the sauce all right let's get the
steamer ready so I've got the steamer heating up right here now with the fish as you can see there
isn't much sauce right now but trust me once the fish steams the fish will release quite a
bit of liquid but I don't want too much liquid so I'm gonna cover this with parchment paper to
prevent the condensation from the lid to get on top of the fish now I have a little trick
for you so see when you get parchment paper out it likes to curl like that so to prevent
it from curling what you do is you just crumple it into a ball and then when you stretch it out
it will kind of mold to whatever shape you want it to go into and just like that and then this
way you're not gonna get too much water drifting you don't want to like completely seal it because
you want to allow the steam to come in but you know a little umbrella is what you're going for
yes careful don't burn yourself okay so this will take for the size of my fish about 15
minutes if you got something thinner check in at 12 and if you have a meat thermometer
you're going for a minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit all righty you tada
up my paper look how beautiful that is see there's so much more liquid now and that's
whip the paper so you can imagine Li how much water that would be we didn't put the paper on
now because we've diluted our sauce a little bit I'm going to taste the sauce just to see
where it's at in terms of saltiness mmm perfect goo that's gingery now at this point if you find
that there's too much water that's gotten into a little bland you can that just a touch more
soy sauce touch more sugar just to to perfect the sauce flavor a little bit now to add some
color to this I'm gonna sprinkle on some green onions which instantly makes everything look
better and if you happen to have something red in the kitchen throw it on to why not this is not
the most colorful of dishes right so whatever you can do to help now I'm going to close the lid let
that green onion just steam in the residual steam for 30 seconds or so just to you know
activate all those oniony flavor and then you're done get your rice ready look at that fish oh my
god now it's just careful especially if you are using black cod there are pin bones that
sort of is spread out in between the fillet you grew up eating bone-in fish you kind of know the
drill but you know mmm the smell of all of the black beans and the ginger and garlic so good
it's like the flavor of comforting home cooking like it's not a strongly flavored dish one way or
another but it's just well balanced with the saltiness and sweetness and that little funk
from the black beans the fish I love black cod it's so moist and juicy and tender and this is
also really forgiving fish like if you overcook it a little bit it's not gonna go dry and tough
on you another reason why I love black cod so I hope you give this recipe a try oh and by the way
for our patreon members in the show after the show I'm gonna talk to you about how I people
might go about making this dish we have a bit of a different technique when it comes to steaming
fish so we'll talk about that and the recipe as always will be on Pais kitchen comm and
when you make it definitely send me a photo on Facebook Twitter or tag me on Instagram and if
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you as always for watching and I will see you next time for your next English just adventure
you