Preparing Tin Mah for cooking

Preparing Tin Mah for cooking is simple.

First, just rinse them a littlte bit for cleaning purpose. Then, soak them in water for a few minutes as shown on the right of the 1st photo.

(The 1st photo also shows another herb in red colour. It is not an essential ingredient in the present dish, so I didn't mention it before. But it would be good to use it too. Only a small amount is needed. It's a commonly available herb in Hong Kong and throughout China, not expensive at all, not even as expensive as Tin Mah. Don't worry about it. I'll explain more in the next post.)

After being soaked for a few minutes, Tin Mah softens and is basically ready for cooking.

However, I apply an additional step which has been recommended by those health columns on magazines/newspapers. That is to treat the Tin Mah with ginger.

The treatment is steaming. First, cut some ginger into pieces and place them on a plate, as in the 2nd photo.

Place the Tin Mah (which has been softened after soaking) on top of the ginger, as in the 3rd photo. Steam the whole thing for a couple of minutes. (I'll explain about steaming at the end of this post.) Then the Tin Mah is ready for cooking. (The ginger placed below the Tin Mah is to be discarded.)

I am not exactly sure about the purpose of steaming the Tin Mah with giner. Some say it will increase its therapeutic value. Some say it will help remove certain undesirable materials that might have become attached to the Tin Mah during production process.

When you do the steaming on Tin Mah, do not steam it for too long. A couple of minutes will be enough. You will notice that after steaming, the Tin Mah becomes kind of glutinous or sticky. It doesn't matter. Just put the whole of the Tin Mah (probably already all sticking together) along with the fish head for further cooking. If you steam too long, the Tin Mah will become even more messy. (I'll explain the subsequent cooking process later.)

When you place the ginger on top of a plate for the purpose of steaming the Tn Mah, try to cover the plate with ginger as much as possible. In other words, avoid letting the Tin Mah have direct contact with the plate; only let the Tin Mah lie on the ginger (instead of directly on the plate); otherwise the Tin Mah will become glued to the plate after steaming.

The process of steaming is as follows. You use a cooking utensil, whatever it is, with lid. Add some water (not too much) in the utensil. Place a steel stand on it (for supporting the plate of ginger and Tin Mah). (The water level is such that it will not spill over into the plate when the water starts to boil.) Start the heating. When the water starts to boil, add the plate of ginger and Tin Mah on top of the stand; close the lid of the utensil once more. Let the water boil, in this case for a couple of minutes. In other words, you let the plate of ginger and Tin Mah remain for a couple of minutes inside the utensil with water which is being boiled; thus full of steam to heat up the ginger and Tin Mah.

(In Chinese cooking, when steaming is used as a method of cooking, the plate of ingredients - or pot of ingredients, whatever it is - is placed inside the cooking utensil only after the water starts to boil. You don't place the plate inside right from the beginning when the water is still cold.)