Suan Cai Yu, Sichuan Sour and Spicy Poached Fish Soup with Pickled Greens (酸菜鱼)
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Suancaiyu is a spicy and sour Sichuanese Fish 'Soup' with pickled mustard greens, a.k.a. suancai. It's hugely popular these days here in China, so we figured it might be a nice one to learn.
While this isn't quick and easy, it's not exactly overly involved either. There's a few different version of this dish - there's those that smother it with chili oil, there's those that amp up the sourness with lemon, and there's those with a drinkable soup. We personally enjoy that last version, so that's what this recipe is.
Written recipe over here on reddit over on /r/cooking:
/ recipe_suan_cai_yu_sic...
/ recipe_suancai_yu_sich...
And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified
Outro Music: "Add And" by Broke For Free
/ broke-for-free
ABOUT US
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Learn how to cook real deal, authentic Chinese food! We post recipes every Tuesday (unless we happen to be travelling) :)
We're Steph and Chris - a food-obsessed couple that lives in Shenzhen, China. Steph is from Guangzhou and loves cooking food from throughout China - you'll usually be watching her behind the wok. Chris is a long-term expat from America that's been living in China and loving it for the last nine years - you'll be listening to his explanations and recipe details, and doing some cooking at times as well.
This channel is all about learning how to cook the same taste that you'd get in China. Our goal for each video is to give you a recipe that would at least get you close to what's made by some of our favorite restaurants here. Because of that, our recipes are no-holds-barred Chinese when it comes to style and ingredients - but feel free to ask for tips about adaptations and sourcing too!
The depth of study and prep that you guys put into every single video is really remarkable. Thanks for the hard work.
I won’t ever stop being surprised by the diversity of Chinese food, its so vast and there’s no way i would know about this food without y’all. The only way to taste lots of dishes for me is to make them myself so thank you so much y’all.
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. Someone over on Patreon was saying that they couldn't find 'suancai' where they lived, it was under the Hokkein name 'Kiam Chai'. And for that matter, you might be able to find it under the Cantonese name 'Hum Choy'. The Cantonese version of the vegetable is slightly less sour than the Sichuanese type, might just have to add a touch more vinegar is all. (I believe the Hokkein/Malaysian one would be basically like the Cantonese type - so you might want a touch more vinegar - but don't hold me to that as we've never personally tasted it)
2. And yeah, that wasn't a very good fillet job. Don't go to the market on a busy Sunday and ask them to do something annoying, lesson learned.
3. On that note, don't worry, the fish meat that was on there wasn't wasted. We set it aside and dipped it in soy sauce with fresh heaven facing chilis (朝天椒酱油).
4. As for the hot pot idea, what we'd recommend is once you finish the fish, move everything over to a hotplate. Remove any excess suancai. Toss in sliced... whatever. We really like rice noodles.
5. I know this one didn't end up looking very grabbing in the end. One of the struggles in making these 'big bowl of Sichuanese boiled stuff' dishes. They look awesome in person but really don't seem to translate well to the camera.
6. If you don't feel like it, you don't need to do this with fish stock. This is just the way to get the tastiest soup. If you don't feel like drinking the soup, it's not very important.
Chinese Cooking Demystified
British here, I just opted for making the Suancai on my own using my grandma’s pickling juice and a bit of my own recipe.
We have suancai in our local Chinese supermarket, but they taste a bit weird if not thoroughly washed and if thoroughly washed, it loses flavour.
I think for a future video, maybe you can teach how to make different types of Chinese pickles. I personally keep a jar of north eastern pickle for 酸菜白肉, several jars of mixed Sichuan Suancai, ginger and chilli, a jar of the sour pickled chilli for direct consumption (recipe from a Uyghur friend, but the style I think originate from central China), and several jars of the more salty non-sour pickled chilli from Xi’an.
Could You give a comment on the stainless Wok you're using on that one? Have‘nt seen you or anybody else using this, is it because of the acidity? How do you make those nonstick? No longyau?
As to 5. Try making a close up shot on a shallow angle. Helps with stuff, that looks ..flat from above.
2 months already but acidity will strip away the seasoning of the wok so it's not good to cook anything vinegar, red wine, tomato and the like in cast iron/carbon steel cookware.
thanks for always giving ingredient substitutions, really helpful for us in the states and elsewhere
Glad I found this. There is a restaurant chain that popped up around Seattle that translates the dish as "Chinese Sauerkraut Fish", and is the only main dish on the menu! Might have to try it now.
My mom loved this dish when I was little, back in China. Both my parents liked spicy food a whole lot, just me who is so intolerant to spiciness that I couldn’t bear anything mildly spicy, let alone ever reaching their level of craziness.
So every time we go out to eat when my parents had the urge to eat Sichuan food, we would have a bowl of tea prepared for me to rinse off some of the spiciness before I eat. But of course the real solution of this dilemma is to order one no spicy dish for me so they can enjoy the whole ordeal with ease
Nice recipe my dude, brings back a lot of memories
I change vinegar with fresh lime juice, n its more fragrance i think.. n i love all yours videos, thank you!! ❤️
Love it! Everything is better with a little MSG!
Thanks for the video guys, I'll probably never have the skill to do it, but it's certainly mouthwatering :D
One of my favorite dishes, and I haven't been able to find it since moving back to the midwest. I will definitely be giving this recipe a try.
Let us know how it turns out~
Don’t know why you don’t think this is a “looker”. It looks visually pleasing!
Excellent channel ! I love you guys !
One word:
Scrummy!!!!
Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁
Made this today, turned out great! Thanks for video :)
Love this dish, thanks for the recipe!
Gonna make this today, thanks for the upload!
You guys have the best recipes. And I love that you do recipes that are virtually unknown in the West, or at least to US-born white people like me.
Yeah we think it's important to have a mix of stuff. On one level, we do want to show things that people *want* to learn, otherwise what's the point? At the same time though, we also wanna share dishes that we love or find interesting as well.
I feel the same way, there are plenty of UA-camrs who are showing how to make the food you'd find in an average Chinese takeaway in the West, but you're one of the few UA-cam channels showing how to make authentic Chinese foods including home style food'. I really appreciate that. And you make things really clear and easy to follow, thanks!
Mexican-American neither ;). Chinese food is just so diverse, I cant imagine somewhere in the US being able to serve all these different dishes. The only way to eat it....is to make it ourselves with Chris’s and Steph’s help ;).
So tempting ....love Chinese food n love for China....from Pakistan
Cheers, have you ever been to China? Any request dishes?
Wow this looks delicious, and not very hard to make either.
Great dish. I will definitely try it. The only thing I will change is Sichuan peppercorns. I would like to grind them and sprinkle on the soup as I really hate to chew on the whole peppercorns.
Wow, I missed this vid, one of my faves!
WOW. I love Sichuanese food, but I didn't know this dish existed before. I'll definitely have to give this recipe a try! The Sichuanese "shuizhu" method is my major food discovery/obsession this year (thanks to you guys! I've made them over 10 times now!). I have found that instead of large chili sections and whole peppercorns at the end, I prefer chili flakes and ground peppercorns for the last element of the dish. Because I find that if I finish with the former method I don't taste the chili/peppercorns as much as if I poured the hot oil over ground chilis/peppercorns. So I want to ask which version is more common in China? And how important is that element of the chili fragrance and peppercorn numbness on top?
Cheers! Always nice to hear that someone like our recipes. So for the finishing chilis/peppercorns, it's definitely more common to see deseeded chili and whole corn in China. That already gives you enough flavor. I'm guessing the stuff you used outside of China, especially Sichuan peppercorn is not of the best quality. So the taste may be weaker. For this dish, the final hot oil on chili/garlic and the numbness is part of its signature taste and aroma, our apartment smells like suan cai yu every time I pour the oil on, lol. So right, don't skip it~
@@thisissteph9834 好的！Thank you so much for your response, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE you guys's videos. Keep it up!
I didn't make this myself, but I tried it for the first time in a great Szechuan restaurant and now I understand why it is so popular! Pickled greens, chilis and fish is a simple combination but man it's addictive.
Definitely going to try this one. How interesting that the last step is just like an Indian tarka!
Interesting, Indian food is very much an unknown for us technique wise. From a quick google it seems like Tarka's generally cooked a bit longer though? This was like in and out in seconds.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified There are more similarities between the two cuisines than one might realize...utensils, flavor profiles, ingredients! Of course the results are rather different.
Could you do fu qi fei pian? Would love to have a video instruction for it!
This is one of my favorite dishes, called "fish and sour cabbage soup" served at one of my favorite local Szechuan restaurants. I will be trying this recipe. I make a chicken soup with home fermented chai goy and homemade chicken stock. It's tasty, but it’s not this, of course. I'm trying to source some Chinese pickled ginger, but have found a couple of recipes. Is there a particular brand that you know of that is available in the U.S? I would love to see a video (if y’all haven’t done one already) about making various Chinese pickles and ferments. Is that a possibility in the future?
The pickle mustard green actually have the substitution for it. Look for a Vietnamese market and this call “Cai muoi chua” or “Cai muoi”. Or get a Vietnamese friend, their mom always have it in the kitchen
I think the Viet version is closer to the Cantonese one, which is buried in salt and pickled. While the Sichuan one is pickled in a liquid mixture with salt and spices. I think subbing it may work, but the Sichuan one is sourer ~ So I guess it'll need more vinegar at the end if using the Viet/Cantonese kind of pickled green.
this looks sooooo gooooood
Looks amazing!
Oh no! You're out of liaojiu (aka Shaoxing wine)!
In my experience Indian mustard oil is very strong in flavour and would mess things up.
But cold pressed rapeseed oil (as they use in Sichuan) can be found as a local product in many countries, like the UK. I don't know if it is exactly the same as in Sichuan though.
We found that after heating up the oil, the taste of Indian mustard seed oil was very similar to Sichuanese caiziyou. I've looked into those cold pressed rapeseed oils, and the color never seemed quite right - Sichuanese caiziyou should be dark and pungent, very similar to Indian mustard seed oil. Plus, those producers demand a fortune for their product, so I can't in good faith recommend it :)
i love the channel. will you ever do a qna someday? :)
Hmm... I think I'm active enough in the comments that a Q&A vid isn't really something people've been clamoring for. Plus, no one wants to see my ugly mug haha. If you have a question either me or Steph are happy to get back to ya here :)
Could you try to make a peking duck video before thanksgiving? Would love to make it instead of a normal Turkey.
Unfortunately is impossible to test using our little halogen oven, so we won't be able to do roast duck/goose anytime soon. What I'd do is use Kenji's recipe for the bird, which seems smart and passed the smell test:
www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/peking-duck-mandarin-pancakes-plum-sauce-recipe.html
HOWEVER, use our spring pancake recipe instead: ua-cam.com/video/OSkjuCtbR0M/v-deo.html
And for the sauce, don't use his but instead do the following:
Place a bowl or saucepan in a wok filled with simmering water (in a Western kitchen, go for a double boiler), and add equal parts Sweet Bean Paste (i.e. tianmianjiang/甜面酱) and white sugar to the bowl. Allow the sugar to dissolve into Sweet Bean Paste, and once it starts to simmer, mix in a little sesame oil to the sauce. Leave it in the fridge to sit overnight.
"Actually pretty tasty"
Hahaha, I was hoping that someone will notice it. Stickers from Lucky Peach, love it.
Is this the same small mouth bass caught in the U.S.?
That looks exactly like the Suan Cai Yu served in a Chinese restaurant.
Wht kind of fish do you use
Another great video! Can I make a request for sour soup fatty beef (酸湯肥牛)?
Sure~ but it may be a little while before we would put that out since we just did a sour soup thing. Personally I love that dish too~
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified thank you
Why did you use a different Wok for this?
The sour soup strips off the seasoning of the iron wok.
Yeah we picked that wok up when testing oyster sauce. We've learned it's best practice to use stainless steel woks for certain long braises/steaming and the like and we finally made the switch. So two woks in our kitchen now lol
acidic items wear out reactive pots and pans made out of iron and copper.
stainless steel is the best if you are a person like me that is new to cooking.
Can be tough to stir-fry in though! Very easy for food to stick :)
Omg...the white fish broth!!! Ive tried 3 times...still couldn't make it. Not white enough
Try to really brown your fish during the initial frying, use hot water and keep it at a boil for at least 20 minutes, then you should be able to get it. The one in the video is not white enough, I didn't fry the fish for long enough~
地道！
上班的时候每天中午吃酸菜鱼外卖 现在看到都感觉腻 ...
Oof
i always wonder how asian/chinese people eat (around) those sichuan pepper corns in those dishes. they are making me crazy when i bite on them...
do they just not chew with their teeth?
Lukas Sanchéz they’re not meant to be eaten. It’s just for flavor.
Anyone come here from Andong's channel?
前排
Am i first!
Not a huge fan of suan cai yu :(
pao jiao makes me throw up!
Then dont watch