benazir's blog

Chinese Five Spice Fish

Hey folks I just want to let you know in Facebook I recieved a lot of birthday greetings on my birthday. My birthday is the 23d of August and I made the big 60 however for me it is really not a happy event because it is my first birthday I had spent with none of my parents. My mom passed away when I was 22 and my dad 6 months ago.

I still feel a lot of hurt anger and down and outright hostility towards the so called people who my dad was in contact with just before his death. His death really hurt me a lot and it was very hard for me to get through Eid and then my birthday without him present. Yes I still am in therapy dealing with all of this bullshit. I want to thank everyone for thinking of me and I hope everyone had a wonderful time on their birthdays as well and sorry for the delay because I have not been myself.

I am still pissed off with other family members from Pakistan that has not bothered to reach out to me to express their condolences about my father this hurt is not going away nor will I ever forgive them and I will take this grudge to my grave. That is one thing about me that if someone crosses me just once and they are written off for good. On top of this I am also missing my mom’s friend’s husband who passed away a couple of months ago also. He has seen me grow up and actually show the world. what I am about and I know he is proud of me too.

That old man has even sat me down and told me that he does not blame me for not wanting to take shit off of anyone. He did not want me to lose my temper to the point where I would end up in prison for the rest of my life. He did not want me to get in to trouble. Obviously he was more then thrilled when I got married and settled down too.

Now for starters you will need to make Chinese Five Spice My Way. You will need 1 kg or 1 lb of any type of fish that comes in either fillets or steaks. If using smelts or even fresh sardines or even butterfish you would need more which is give or take double that amount. Any type of fish can be used or you can use 1 or 2 whole fish or depending on how many people are eating with you. You can also use fresh shrimp too if you want to. If the fish is frozen then let thaw in the refridgerator overnight.

As you see I used tilapia. Frozen whole fish is not even cleaned half the time or halfway done. I had to rip out the gills on this one. The fish was already scaled and the belly cut and the insides removed. If you are using butterfish it is advisable to rip out the gills and put your finger in by the gill flaps and gentely press on this kind of fish to help dislodge its organs and then pull out with your fingers that is under the gill flaps. When this is done rinse it and set this aside. Repeat until there is no more to do.

The fresh sardines and smelts are prepped already before packaging so this is not an issue. Peel and devein 1 to 2 bags of shrimp if using. If the shrimp is deviened and unpeeled then just unpeel them. Also remove the heads and tails. For bigger whole fish like mackerel scaling is not an issue but you must cut open the belly and remove the insides and take out the gills under the gill flaps. With whole tilapia and red snapper especially salmon if you can find it all you have to do is take a scaler which can be bought from Amazon.

If you don’t and are strapped for cash then use what you have at home like the front end of the spoon. Now place the fish in the colander and start from the tail and work slowly towards the head. The scales will pop off easily and land in the colander instead of the sink then use a boning knife to cut open the belly and remove the insides. Rip out the gills under the gill flaps and rinse very well. Trim the fins off of the fish and set them aside.

If you are using frozen whole whiting then it is clean very much. You can also use squid and octopus for this recipe too. Just take off the tenticles off of the squid and take out its backbone which looks like a piece of plastic. Remove the beak also and set them aside. With the octopus make sure you remove the beaks if you find them.

Set all of these cleaned fish aside and add 3 capfuls of lemon juice which removes the fishy smell from the fish. I used 3 dashes of Braggs coconut aminos to this fish and you can also use Braggs liquid aminos, tamari, panzu, dark soy sauce or soy sauce.

I added 1 capful of fish sauce but you can also use 1 dab of either oyster sauce, crab paste or shrimp paste. I added 1 pinch of sea salt but you can also add either pink salt or kosher salt. Then you can add 1 pinch of msg. I added 1 tsp of Chinese black vinegar, you can also use lychee vinegar which is available at H Mart or rice vinegar. Add the contents of the mortar and pestle being the Chinese five spice powder and mix, cover and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before cooking.

On high heat in a wok add 1 oz of either canola oil, corn oil or vegetable oil. Add 3 tbs each of sesame oil and chili oil. Cook the fish and other seafoods you are using such as the octopus, shrimp or squid I had mentioned Make sure they are opaque then add 1 small piece of ginger, 3 cloves of garlic minced. Smash and peel the garlic before using. Add 3 chopped green onions and fry until fragrant. Add 1 drop of rice syrup which is available also at H Mart. Mr. Riaz raved about this a bunch.

Serve this with either rice or noodles. I used 1 bag of ramen noodles for this. Just be sure if it is the one from Korea that it says it is halal on the label. It is primarily the real spicy ones which is ok to eat but I usually stick to either Knorr, Shan, Chings, Indomie or even Maggi. You can even serves this even with udon, soba, glass noodles or rice noodles too.

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