Salted vegetables steam fish - Teochew style

Golden Promfret steam with salted vegetables and tofu
During the 1970s, my maternal grandfather /grandmother will celebrate their birthday by getting cook-in caterers to cook in their yard and serve 10 course lunch in their premises.
Yes, these are things that not all people can afford during those days. However, it is still considered cheaper to dine-in at any restaurant.
Also having wedding dinner at home in the 1970s to early 1980s is very common for all folks in the villages. You can even see drunken falling into the wells after drinking too much hard liquor after wedding dinner.  Being a Teochew who grew up in the old Punggol, I witness and observed all these events and changes from late 1960s to 1990s. Maybe it is in my blood, I love food, so I tend to remember the taste and observe what kind of food is being placed on the table during these occasions. It is unfortunate that at that time, I was only 5 to 9 years old that I was always place on the side table where the long tables is being laid out for children only. Because of this, the more I will want to know what is on the adult table and I always feel that the food serve there was nicer.
One of the dish that most adults will talk about after the lunch or wedding dinner is always the steam promfret.  During those days, the caterer will always use the Chinese Promfret (斗鲳)

Chinese Promfret - Tou Cheo
It is a very expensive fish, but if we can afford, this will be the preferred fish for steaming. It has more meat than the Golden Promfret that I am steaming. During those days, the caterer will only steam it with ginger, salted vegetables and salted plum. They will garnish with chinese parsley and chinese lettuce. The fresh fish soup taste hot and delicious where most of the diners will scope it and drink it. 

Golden Promfret
Today, I am going to steam this 380grams Golden Promfret
The normal price for this fish can be like $15 to $17 per kilograms. From a sale recently at NTUC at 2 for only $5.90, I quickly choose 2 largest ones to try them out. Not too bad as the freshness was not compromise - I thought offer items usually are not that fresh.
Because this is a small fish, not enough for 4 persons, so I am going to add in tofu to increase the volume. Besides, we love this kind of steam food and soup from the steam fish will compliment the tofu very well too. 

Main Ingredients -
Fish - Mine is about 380grams. This recipe can use for fish up to 600 grams.
2 pieces of Salted Plum
Ginger
1/2 Canned Salted vegetables 

Optional ingredients - I usually go with it
1 stalk Chinese Parsley or coriander for garnish after steaming
Fried Garlic - 1 teaspoon
2 pieces of soaked chinese mushrooms
2 tomatoes
1 packet soft tofu

Let us start preparing to steam this fish.
1st - we need to clean the fish and wash the stomach clean.
Leave it on a strainer to drain off excess fishy water.

Peel the ginger and cut into thin slices.
We can cut them into thin strips. As one of my daughter do not like ginger, I cut them into visible slices so that she will not accidentally picked them while we can purposely pick them to eat. We love these ginger after steaming with fish. 

Salted vegetables
I used the canned salted vegetables instead of those "fresh" ones from the wet market pickle stalls.
The advantage of using the canned ones is that we need not wash them. The saltiness of this pickle is just right. So we can use half of them. Also, I will use some of the water from this can to add in the steam fish while steaming. The balance of the salted vege can be used to eat with teochew porridge. As for today, I love this vegetable. So will be adding all into my fish for steaming today.
Slice the vegetables.

Slice 2 pieces of soaked mushroom

Place the fish in the steaming plate
Place ginger onto the fish stomach and the body

We need 2 salted plum.
Remove 1 plum at a time from the jar, squeeze the plum onto the fish and spread them onto the fish.

Cut up the tofu into 8 pieces.
Place them on both sides fo the fish.

Cut 2 tomatoes into 1/6 size and place them onto the fish.
Same for the sliced mushroom.

Add half can of the salted vege water onto the fish and it is ready for steaming.
No salt is need as the salted vege and plum is already salty enough.

1st wait for the water to boil under high fire.
Place the fish onto the steamer and steam under medium high fire for 10 mins.
Let it rest for  2 mins after cook.

Add chinese parsely and fried garlic onto the fish upon opening up the steamer cover.
Remember to spoon the soup onto the garnish so that the flavour can add on to the dish.
Enjoy !!!