Kelong parrotfish cook report!

A fish weighing 6.5 kg can definitely be made into many meals. Half the head of this parrotfish was made into a 鱼头炉 (Fish Head Hotpot) Monday night.

This dish served as dinner for 6 of us!

Fish Head Hotpot (6 servings)

• 1 or 1/2 head of fish weighing approx 600 to 800g (Most commonly used fish for this dish is actually from the snapper family)
• 500g Chinese cabbage (大白菜) - cut into inch-wide pieces
• 1 can button mushroom
• 1 can Pacific clams
• 200g roast pork (烧肉) - sliced
• 1 thumb-sized knob of ginger - sliced thinly
• 1 sprig spring onions - diced
• 6 bowls of water
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 2 tbs chinese cooking wine
• salt/ fish sauce to taste
• pepper

1. Heat oil in pot and fry the ginger till fragrant. Add the fish head and fry till half cooked. You can opt to keep the head whole, or chop it into chunks.
2. While fish is frying, boil the 6 cups of water in a separate container.
3. When the fish is ready, add the cooking wine, then pour the boiling water in.
4. Put the cabbage, mushroom, clams and roast pork in, bring to a boil again, and then simmer for approximately 15 mins till cooked. (This time will vary depending on whether you chop the fish head up or not.)
5. Add salt/fish sauce and pepper to taste and sprinkle spring onions over.
6. Serve immediately with rice.

We were also served this dish at Hotboys kelong during our stay. Instead of the roast pork and clams, they added cubes of yam and black wood ear fungus (黑木耳). The fish head, cabbage and mushrooms are almost 'mandatory' for this hotpot, but the combination of optional ingredients is entirely up to you. Whatever you put in, the fish head will certainly make the soup sweeeeet!