Salted Fish Kailan (or Gai Lan depending on the romanization) is one of our all time favorite dishes from our time in Malaysia. I’ve tried over the years to recreate the salted fish kailan we used to order, but I’ve run into every kind of trouble from not being able to find good salted fish to finding the right amount of complexity.
For the salted fish – I’ve tried pretty much everything, and honestly we are trying to cut back on sodium so I was searching for a slightly better salted fish. The easiest, most widely available and best balance we found was canned dace. You know the dace, the infamous Eagle Coin canned one – most every Chinese market carries it, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. You could probably use the black bean one, but we used plain.
Some recipes for Chinese veggies are basic, almost too basic, basically just boiled with some oyster sauce. This can also work well, but we like a bit more complexity to the dish. So we adapted this over the years from various recipes and I wanted to record it here for posterity.
It’s still pretty simple but adds some aromatics to make your mouth water before you bite in 🙂
Recipe :
1 lb Kailan/Gai Lan (whole or stems separated)
Lots of water – like 5-6 cups
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of sugar
1 tablespoon of oil (pretty much any oil)
1 can of Dace (Eagle Coin) chopped into small chunks
3 cloves of garlic minced
3 slices of ginger cut into slivers
1 tbsp shao xing wine
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp of sesame oil
1/2 tsp of cornstarch mixed with 1/2 tsp of water (optional)
Method :
Boil the water in a large sauce pot, I used a large flat pan with deep sides to speed up the boiling process, you can also pre-boil in a kettle to speed it up. Add in the first tablespoon of oil with the 1/2 tsp of salt and sugar. Mix-mix.
Once it comes to a rolling boil, add in the Kailan/Gai Lan. We’ve found that the family prefers the stem base to be separated and split in half to make it softer. Keep it on a boil for 3-5 minutes till the Kailan hits the doneness you like. Remove from the pan into a colander, dump out the remainder of the water, wipe it out and back on the heat, med high.
When nice and hot, throw in the dace and fry it well, it should turn a brown color. Take the dace out leaving the oil that it released into the pan.
Throw in the garlic and ginger slivers, turn down the heat to medium, cook till fragrant, then add in the shao xing wine, let it bubble off, then add the oyster sauce and oil. Mix Mix again.
Once set, add the Kailan/Gai Lan back into the pan and mix to coat. Optional – you can throw in the cornstarch slurry a bit at a time if you want a slicker texture. Then toss in the fried dace, and mix mix summore.
All set! Plate it and eat it. Don’t leave any behind. No Dace left behind.
Happy Cooking, and Happy Eating!