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You are here: Home / All Recipes / Baked Fish with Oyster Sauce

Baked Fish with Oyster Sauce

Fish with the head? Served with the eyes staring at you? This is Asian cooking and, in Asia, we know that value of cooking a fish whole with the bones and with the head intact.

Baked fish with ouster sauce garnished with cilantro

You prefer a sanitized appearance? No head and fish bones removed? You will get a bland dish. Fish fillet have its place in Asian cooking but for steamed fish, substituting fillets means sacrificing flavor for appearance. I really urge you not to go in that direction.

Baked Fish with Oyster Sauce

Recipe by Connie Veneracion
This baked fish with oyster sauce cooks inside the oven in a tent of aluminum foil. Technically, it's a combination of baking and steaming but who's splitting hairs, right?
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 25 mins
Total Time 35 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Asian, Asian Fusion
Servings 4 people
Baked fish with ouster sauce garnished with cilantro
Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1 whole fleshy fish , about 1.5 kg. in weight, scaled and gutted
  • ½ head garlic
  • 1 onion
  • 1 thumb-sized piece ginger
  • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
  • 1 small bunch cilantro , snipped
  • 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley , snipped (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Rinse the fish, including the cavity, then pat dry with a kitchen towel.
  • Score the fish by making 3 to 4 diagonal incisions on both sides, about half an inch deep.
  • Season with salt and pepper, rubbing the seasonings into the incisions.
  • Finely mince the garlic.
  • Cut the onion into very thin slices.
  • Cut the ginger into matchsticks.
  • Take two large pieces of aluminum foil. One should be about six inches longer than the fish and the other should be three-fourths longer than the first piece.
  • Brush a tablespoonful of oyster sauce on each side of the fish.
  • Lay the fish on the smaller piece of aluminum foil.
  • Scatter the onion, garlic and ginger over the whole length of the fish.
  • Cover with the longer piece of foil, pulling up the center to create a “tent”. Gather the edges of the top and bottom pieces of foil and fold inward two to three times. Do this with all four sides of the foil.
  • Transfer the fish in the foil on a baking sheet and cook in a preheated 180C oven for 20 to 25 minutes.
  • Take the fish from the oven, unroll the edges and carefully peel off the top piece of foil.
  • Heat the sesame oil in a small pan until smoking and pour over the fish.
  • Sprinkle the snipped cilantro and parsley over the fish and serve at once.

Notes

Updated from a recipe originally published in April 6, 2008
Keyword Whole Fish
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