I cooked: Steamed Siakap (barramundi) in Soy Sauce 清蒸鱼

How many of you grew up hearing this phrase from your parents (especially the Asian ones)?  -"If you eat lots of fish, you will become smarter!".

Thankfully, this is not a line I have to repeat to my kids as they would happily eat fish without me having to tell them. In fact, whenever we have steamed fish in our house, THEY would always ask for an extra portion! And then, they will thank their grandpa (who buys the seafood for us) for the lovely fish. Isn't that lovely of them?

Since we practice a "no deep frying" rule in our house, we will only buy fish if it's VERY FRESH because we always steam it. Yes, fish needs to be fresh when you plan to steam it or else you will get all sort of funny smells and tastes.

Steamed siakap in soy sauce

How to steam fish? Steaming fish is not difficult - the cooking time all depends on the size of your fish. Usually fish fillet will take 8 minutes and a medium size fish (eg 8 inch pomfret) would take around 10 minutes to steam. A trick I learnt from my mum to check whether it is cooked is to insert a skewer or chopstick in the centre (thickest part of the fish) and if it goes all the way through then the fish is cooked. Easy peasy!

Last week, we purchased a fresh siakap which is also known as barramundi, sea perch or Asian seabass in English. You can use some lime juice to clean the stomach to remove any "muddy" smells. For steamed fish, you can use both salty or sweet soy sauce, but we prefer the salty one. With very fresh fish, it needs very little condiments, so usually we just add julienned old ginger, fried shallot and garlic, a dash of Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. This is the best way to enjoy fresh fish, and its natural sweetness and flavours.

Steamed Asian Seabass / siakap 清蒸鱼(石甲)
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 13 minutes
Serves 4

1 whole siakap (barramundi), approx. 750g
2 inch old ginger, julienned
1 shallot, finely chopped
Juice of 1 lime (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp light soy sauce (either salty or sweet)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
2 tbsp cooking oil
Spring onion or coriander, to garnish
1 whole red chilli, sliced (optional)


1. Clean the fish and pat dry. Use the lime juice to "wash" the stomach to remove any muddy smells.

2. Using a sharp knife, split the fish in the middle (like "butterflying" a fish but without removing the backbone). This is optional (more for nicer appearance), you can also just steam the fish whole as it is.

3. In a large stainless steel plate / heatproof dish, place half the ginger and then top with the fish, then top the rest of the ginger on the fish. Pour sesame oil and Shaoxing wine over the fish and leave to marinate for 10 minutes.

4. In a frying pan over medium high heat, heat the cooking oil and add garlic and shallot. Fry for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.

5. Pour oil, shallot and garlic over the fish and add soy sauce. Place in steamer over high heat, and steam for 10 minutes. To test if the fish is cooked, insert a skewer in the centre (thickest part of the fish), if the skewer goes through all the way, the fish is cooked.

6. Remove from heat and garnish with spring onion, coriander and chilli. If giving this to children, you can omit the chillies.

*This recipe was featured on Asian Food Channel's FB page on 15 Oct 2012.