Sichuan House Roasted Seabass

What it tastes like

The broth is the thing. It is red, oily and savoury, built on doubanjiang, a fermented broad bean and chilli paste that tastes salty and slightly sweet as well as hot. We use whole dried chillies and ground chilli together. The whole ones give a rounder, warmer heat, the ground gives a sharper one, and between them the heat builds rather than hitting you at once.

There is Sichuan peppercorn in there too. It is not hot. It smells of citrus and leaves a light tingle on your lips underneath everything else.

It carries on cooking at your table.

The fish is soft but holds together, and it picks up more of the broth the longer it sits over the flame. Everything else in the pot behaves differently: lotus root stays crunchy all the way through, tofu and dried bean curd soak the broth up and go rich, black fungus stays slippery, enoki catches the sauce in threads. By the end of the meal all of it tastes of the broth.

Why we roast it first

We roast the fish on its own before it goes anywhere near liquid. The skin browns and the flesh firms up, so it stays in one piece in the pot instead of breaking apart the way poached fish does. The broth is made separately at the same time, and the two only meet at the end.

It goes out over a lit burner and stays hot to the last of it. There is a lot of broth, but it is not a soup. It is a whole fish in a pot with everything else around it.

Choosing your sauce

You pick when you order. Sichuan (香辣) is the spicy one and it is what most people take. Black bean (豆豉) is milder and more savoury, less chilli and more depth. Douban (酱香) is thicker and richer, stirred through the broth.

Useful if your table disagrees about heat. It is the same fish either way.

The name

In Chinese it is 川香烤鱼: 川 for Sichuan, kǎoyú for roast fish. It is a common dish at home in Sichuan and one of the most popular things we cook.

Ordering it

£26.80, and it is meant for the middle of the table. Get some rice and a couple of cold dishes with it.