Fried Whole Fish with Lemon Sauce
Think Chinese lemon chicken. Substitute a whole fish for the small pieces of chicken, fry the fish to a crisp, lay it on a platter and pour the sticky chili-spiked sweet sour lemon sauce over it. Serve the fried fish with sticky lemon sauce with rice for a delightful meal.What’s the secret for making a sticky lemon sauce? Cook it like a syrup. Sugar, lemon juice and water. No starch. But do add lemon zest for better aroma. Just boil gently until syrupy.And the bright yellow color? Turmeric.
Ingredients
For the sticky sweet sour lemon sauce
- ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 2 bird's eye chilies finely sliced
- 2 pinches salt
For frying
- ¼ cup corn starch
- cooking oil for deep frying
To garnish
Instructions
Prep the fish
- Pat the fish dry with a kitchen towel. Score both sides (see how).
- Rub the herb salt all over the fish including the slits and cavity.
- Place the fish in a covered container and keep in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Make the sauce
- In a small sauce pan, stir all the ingredients for the sauce with 1/4 cup water.
- Set the pan over high heat and allow the mixture to boil.
- Turn down the heat to medium-low and cook the sauce, uncovered, until reduced by half. Set aside. The sauce thickens some more as it cools.
Fry the fish
- Sprinkle the starch on both sides of the fish.
- Set a frying pan large enough to hold the fish on the stove and set the heat to high. Pour in enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
- When you see fine wisps of smoke floating on the surface of the oil, slide in the starched fish. Keeping the heat on high, cook the fish for six minutes. Flip to cook the opposite side for another four minutes.
Assemble the dish
- Scoop out the fish (a kitchen spider is useful) and lay on a serving plate.
- Pour enough of the sticky sweet sour lemon sauce over the hot fish so that a little pool forms around it.
- Sprinkle the fish with torn cilantro before serving.
Notes
Ideally, to keep the cooking time short, the fish is fried while the sauce is bubbling away in another pot. Fish and sauce cook at the same time, keeping the cooking time at around 10 minutes. However, it might be a confusing procedure for some. The recipe above doubles the cooking time but is, overall, less frenzied.
Updated from a recipe originally published in 3/2/18
