There was once a resturant in my little town which served the most delicious food. Hubby and I loved to go there. As all good resturants seem to do in these parts, it closed after a few years.
For more than a year I’ve been fruitlessly searching for a recipe to replicate my favorite meal, which they called “Shanghai Trout.” It was a filet breaded in almonds, fried, and resting atop a bed of spinach and rice. That part is simple enough: it’s the sauce I can’t find. (Apparently, this was just their name for the dish because I’ve never seen anything like it when I search under that term.) The sauce was dark brown and slightly sweet in flavor.
Can anyone help? I’ve got* such *a craving for it.
Could it have been Indonesian sweet soy sauce, by any chance? If you blend equal parts brown sugar or molasses and soy sauce, and heat until the sugar dissolves, that’s what you get more or less.
It also could have been a not-very-spicy version of hoisin sauce, too.
You say the sauce was dark brown and “slightly sweet”. This could be many different things working off such a basic description. Maybe you could describe it in a bit more detail?
It could be a Chinese Master sauce which is similar to ketchup manis in as far as its uses, coloring, and flavor. But you stipulate that it is slightly sweet, so in my mind that disqulaifies a master sauce or manis as they are usually very sweet. I would put my money on some kind of Black Bean Sauce from the description, because that’s a fairly popular sauce to serve over whole fried fish in chinese cuisine. There are three popular ways to serve fried fish in China depending on region and/or chefs, either with a Black Bean Sauce, a Chile Sauce, or a Sweet and Sour Sauce, so I’m guessing it was Black Bean from your description.
However, there is another possibility… the sauce could be XO sauce. Which is another good bet from your description.
It’s very difficult to do so, because it was a rather complex flavor and I’m not good at describing those. I don’t like sweet food so if the sauce had anything but a hint of sweetness, I wouldn’t have liked it. It may have had a soy base. A slight bit of vinegar, maybe to give it some tang. I don’t remember it having any “gravy-like” flavors, nor was it have a thick consistency. It was not spicy, nor did the sauce have a seafood-like flavor.
This was an “American cuisine” resturant in the midwest, not a sophisticated ethnic resturant, if that helps any.
Ok, so you would say this sauce was more like a light dressing? Vinegar and Soy based, slightly sweet, and it is Amerasian fusion?
Did you taste any ginger or garlic?
I’m guessing it is a very basic recipe, but it’d be very hard for me to reconstruct without having tasted it or a better description. I’m guessing it’s probably a simple take on some kind of asian dipping sauce.
Not exactly a dressing, per se. The dish was presented with the sauce pooled around the base of the bed of spinach and rice. It wasn’t a garnish, in other words, but an intregal part of the dish.
No, there was no garlic flavor. As for ginger, I really can’t say because I’m not very familiar with that flavor.
DanBlather, would the hot sauce make the it spicy? There was no spiciness to the original sauce-- more of a tanginess. Tangy, slightly sweet with a hint of soy and vinegar.
Probably not even close to your description… But I came up with a new recipe idea (Thanks, Lissa.)
1 whole trout (Salt and Pepper)
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 eggs beaten
4 green onions chopped
Sauced:
6 tbls. of Chu Hou
3 tbls. of dark soy
2 tsp. sugar
2 cups peanut oil
1 tbls.each fresh ginger and garlic minced.
Chicken stock to thin.
I wouldn’t do the almondine… Maybe fry the fish in a light dusting of cornstarch with a dip in egg wash, and then pressed into chopped green onion. Heat oil in wok, deep fry the fish, till a white flake and deep lacey golden brown. Drain the oil leaving 2tblsp.- fry ginger and garlic. Add rest of the ingredients. Heat through, ladle it over fish. Serve over spinach and rice.