Chinese Style Steamed Fish and Oysters

Coming to the end of the week and looking forward (?) to a weekend "on call" for work, I was hankering for a good chinese seafood dinner.

With the rather poor options for eating out in our little town, the best alternative was to cook. So, popped into the local - very good - supermarket (Ferraro's Foods), I picked out the freshest bit of fish I could see. And it so happened to be sole, a lovely bit of finely textured white fish, perfect for steaming. And it was on "special" too! Yay!
Hmm... the fillet was a bit small, so quickly asked for a tub of Fanny Bay Oysters also on sale for $3.90. Yum, this would make a tasty combo.

Once home, it was a simple matter of cooking some fragrant Thai Jasmine rice in the microwave whilst the seafood was being prepared. In the time it took for the rice to cook, all the prep work plus steaming of the fish was done and all I had to do was to precisely time the frying of shallots and garlic and pour the resultant hot oil mixture over the fish with a very satisfying sizzle!

The fish was done just right, flaked beautifully, melt in mouth tenderness, the mild flavour served as a foil for the aromatic green herbs and crunchy onion and garlic bits. The oysters turned out better than expected - plump, juicy and still with a slight crunch. Again the fragrant oils and green herbs complemented the briny almost metallic taste of the bivalve.

Would have gone very well with a chilled Riesling... but next time perhaps!

Ingredients:

• 1 large fillet of sole (or similar, halibut will do nicely too)
• Fresh oysters, (shucked, optional)
• Cilatro leaves, fresh, roughly chopped
• Spring Onions, fresh, finely sliced
• dried garlic flakes
• dried onion flakes
• 1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced
• fresh ginger - about 1 inch - finely juliened
• peanut oil - 4 Tbsp
• sesame oil - 1 tsp
• light soy sauce - 3 Tbsp

You'll also need a large wok with cover or a steamer

Method:

1. make sure the fish has been thoroughly deboned, cut into large portions about 5x8cm
2. lay fish in a heat proof dish (e.g. Pyrex)
3. lay the shucked oysters over the fish, generously layering juliened ginger in between and over all the pieces of seafood
4. bring water to boil in the wok, and place dish with seafood onto a steaming rack, cover and steam at high heat for 5min
5. Whilst fish is cooking, heat peanut oil in a saucepan, add dried onions and garlic to brown - this will take about 2 min, so time it to coincide with the end of the 5min cooking time for the fish
6. Once fish is cooked, remove from steamer, drizzle with soy sauce, sprinkle with cilantro, spring onion and red chilli and pour the very hot oil over the whole assembly. (it was sizzle and spit!)
7. Serve immediately - Enjoy!