Sweet and Sour Hairtail Fish

Sweet and sour hairtail is a classic Chinese dish that perfectly combines crispy fish with an appetizing sauce. Although it seems simple, finding the perfect balance between sweet and sour flavors while maintaining an appropriate texture is a challenge for many home cooks.

Ingredients Needed and Substitutions

To make this sweet and sour hairtail, you need to prepare the following materials:

Main ingredients

Hairtail: With tender meat, it is the core ingredient of this dish, providing the unique flavor and rich protein of sea fish. You can choose fresh or frozen hairtail. Frozen hairtail needs to be thawed in advance. Fresh hairtail has a better taste.

Accessories

Ginger: Removes fishy smell and enhances fragrance, making the dish taste mellow.

Garlic cloves: Add rich garlic fragrance and enrich the taste.

Chopped green onion: Adds onion fragrance and serves as decoration, making the dish more ornamental.

Seasonings

Salt: For basic seasoning, giving the hairtail an appropriate saltiness.

Cooking wine: Removes fishy smell and greasiness, removes the fishy smell of hairtail and enhances the flavor.

Soy sauce: Enhances color and flavor.

Vinegar: An important source of sweet and sour flavor, providing a unique sour taste.

Ketchup: Increases the sweet and sour taste and makes the sweet and sour flavor more mellow.

Starch: Wrapped on the surface of hairtail, forming a crispy skin when frying.

Chopped chili pepper: Brings spiciness and adds flavor levels.

Sugar: Provides sweetness and is combined with vinegar and others to form a sweet and sour taste.

Substitutes

If there is no fresh hairtail, you can also use thawed frozen hairtail for cooking, but the taste may be slightly different.

Cooking wine can be replaced with a small amount of liquor, but the taste will change.

Soy sauce can be selected according to personal preference. Light soy sauce is for enhancing freshness and dark soy sauce is for coloring.

Vinegar can be replaced with other types of vinegar such as rice vinegar, which will change the sweet and sour flavor.

Ketchup can be replaced with sauce made from fresh tomatoes. Homemade sauce has a short shelf life and is more complicated to make.

Starch can be replaced with flour or starch. The coating effect and the crispness after frying are different.

How to judge whether hairtail is fresh

Look at the appearance: Fresh hairtail has a layer of silver-white luster on its body, which is particularly bright, like being coated with a layer of silver. The fish scales should be attached and not fall off. If the surface is yellow or dull, it means it is not very fresh.

Look at the eyes: The eyes of fresh hairtail are protruding and the black pupils are clear. If the eyes are white or sunken, don't buy it.

Touch it: Press the fish meat with your finger. Fresh ones will be very elastic and bounce back immediately after pressing. The meat should be firm and not soft. If it sinks when pressed and does not bounce back, it means it is not fresh. There will be no fishy smell.

Secrets to success

Key points of pickling: There should be enough cooking wine and ginger slices. Pickling for 15 minutes is the most appropriate. It cannot be too long. After pickling, drain the water before wrapping with starch to avoid splashing oil when frying. The starch should be wrapped evenly, not too thick or too thin.

Heat control: When frying fish, the oil temperature should be moderate. Take the appearance of small bubbles as the standard. When reducing the sauce, use low heat to avoid scrambling the fish. Stir gently to make each piece of fish evenly flavored.

Key to seasoning: The ratio of sugar to vinegar is generally 2:1. It cannot be too sour. The amount of soy sauce should be appropriate. If too much is put in, the color will turn black. The soup should be thickened and wrapped on the fish.

Other precautions: The fried fish must be drained of oil, otherwise it will be very greasy in the end. When stir-frying, use a non-stick pan or a large wok for easy stirring. When finally plating, you can sprinkle some chopped green onions for decoration, which is both beautiful and flavorful.

Why is some hairtail bitter

Pickling problem: Too long pickling time or too much salt will damage the fish tissue and cause bitterness. Especially in summer when the temperature is high, the pickling time is best controlled within 15 minutes, and the salt should also be in an appropriate amount.

Heat problem: If the oil temperature is too high or the frying time is too long when frying fish, the fish bile will be fried out. The gallbladder of hairtail is particularly large. If not handled properly, it is easy to break. So when killing the fish, the gallbladder must be carefully taken out and not broken.

Freshness: Unfresh hairtail is easy to be bitter, especially those frozen for too long. After thawing, there will be a bitter taste. So try to buy fresh ones. Deal with them in time after buying. If it really needs to be frozen, it should not exceed one month.

Cleaning problem: The internal organs of hairtail are not cleaned thoroughly, especially the part close to the gallbladder. The residual bile will make the fish meat bitter. Pay special attention to cleaning the internal organs and washing off the blood. It is best to rinse with light salt water.