Name: Sweet-and-Sour Carp
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 30 ml/2 tbsp Shaoxing wine or dry sherry; vegetable oil, for deep-frying; 2 spring onions/scallions, cut into 5 cm/2 in lengths; pinch of salt; 15 ml/1 tbsp sesame oil; 15 ml/1 tbsp Shaoxing wine; 30 ml/2 tbsp Xinkiang black vinegar; 1 large carp (about 600 g/1 lb 5 oz), cleaned, or same weight of fillets; 75 g/3 oz/½ cup cornflour/cornstarch; 60 ml/4 tbsp caster/superfine sugar; 15 ml/1 tbsp light soy sauce; 5 ml/1 tsp finely grated ginger; 1 garlic clove, crushed; 15 ml/1 tbsp shredded fresh root ginger; 2.5 ml/½ tsp salt; 3 garlic cloves, sliced

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

China

By Terry Tan

Published 2020

About

Such is its popularity, every province, town, and even family has its own version of sweet-and-sour sauce; this universal sauce of perfectly balanced contrasting flavours is quintessential to the culinary heritage of China and to many of its dishes. In Chengdu restaurants, sweet-and-sour sauce with carp is considered to be the masterpiece, using the Sichuan combination that includes Shaoxing wine (the more subtle Cantonese version uses a blend of fruity and sour flavours from plum and vineg