Braised Sea Bream Fillet with Peanuts – Hua Sheng Shao Yu

1. Pat the fresh or thawed fish fillet dry with paper towels. Dissolve the chicken broth together with the sugar and the aji-no-moto in the lime juice and brush the fish fillet with it.
2. For the sauce, cap the onions and the garlic cloves at both ends, peel them and chop them roughly. Wash the small, green chilli, cut into thin slices, leave the grains in place, discard the stem. Wash and peel the fresh ginger. Grate the required amount on a fine grater.
3. Wash the tomatoes, remove the stem, cut in half lengthways and remove the green stem. Halve the halves lengthways and thirds across. Wash the fresh celery, pluck the pristine leaves and freeze. Cut the flawless stems crosswise into pieces approx. 3 mm wide. Weigh the required amount and freeze the rest. Measure frozen goods and allow to thaw.
4. Heat the sunflower oil in a wok, add the onions and garlic cloves and stir-fry until the onions are translucent. Add the chilli and ginger and stir-fry again for 1 minute, then add the tomato pieces and stir-fry for 1 minute. Deglaze with the tomato juice, remove from heat and let cool down.
5. Put the mixture together with the tomato paste and the rice wine vinegar in a small blender beaker and puree for 1 minute at high speed.
6. Heat the water and dissolve the chicken broth in it. Add the remaining ingredients except for the peanuts and mix homogeneously into a broth.
7. In a sufficiently large (coated) pan, heat the peanut oil to 220 degrees. Fry the fish fillet on both sides for 30 seconds, remove and place ready. Add the peanuts and stir-fry for 1 minute. Take out and prepare.
8. Pour the puree from the blender into the pan, add the celery stalks and mix. Put the fish fillet in the pan, add the peanuts and the stock. Simmer gently for 8 minutes with the lid on. Take out the fillet and keep it warm. Heat the broth in the pan vigorously and evaporate to a creamy liquid.
9. Arrange the fillet on a plate and garnish. Pour the sauce with the peanuts on top and serve warm as a side dish.

Annotation:

1. In the picture above, flower rice was served with it. The fish fillet is so tender that you can remove it piece by piece with the chopsticks. Less experienced people are allowed to use forks. My personal impression: I only had frozen goods and the thawing of the sea bream fillet took 2 hours, but cooking the whole thing is hardly worth mentioning. But in terms of taste it was for me – the best piece of sea bream ever.