Fish boiled in water, a Chinese way to let freshness and tender texture of the flesh shine
- From spicy Sichuan and sour Yunnan styles to cooked in steel pots, Chinese water-boiled fish dishes come in many forms, most of which can be found in Beijing
- These three restaurants are all popular for their water-boiled fish dishes, though one was a major disappointment
Among the myriad ways to cook fish, water-boiling is popular in China as a simple method that brings out the freshness and tender texture of the flesh.
From the north to the south, people in China have developed their unique styles to water-boil fish, many of which you can find served in the country’s capital. Here are three restaurants in Beijing that are popular for their signature water-boiled fish dishes.
Yunnan boiled fish in sour soup at Cravings
Boiled fish in sour soup – or suan tang yu – is a famous delicacy in Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan. At Cravings, which has two outlets in Beijing, the Yunnan Dali carved plums boiled fish in sour soup is one of its most popular dishes.
The restaurant’s food designer, Xiao Liang, says the Yunnan style of boiled fish in sour soup uses carved plums pickled in alcohol and bean paste chilli sauce to make the broth.
“While people in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou all like to eat sour soup dishes, they use different ingredients to get the sourness,” says Liang, who is from Yunnan province. “To get the specific sour taste I want, I added Yunnan quince into the soup – which has to be boiled for about six hours – to counteract the sweetness from the alcohol-pickled plums.”
