Hunan Steamed Fish with Salted Chilies – Duo Jiao Yu

This Hunan Steamed Fish, or “Duo Jiao Yu” in Chinese, is a famous Hunan-style dish. Traditionally, this dish is served using the upper part of the fish including the fish head (or sometimes ONLY the fish head. Uh, a really big fish head), but we have seen it served with a whole fish also. This Hunan fish recipe uses fish fillets, which makes preparation (and eating) easier.

A Simple Restaurant-Style Recipe

We were so delighted at how simple this dish was to make the first time we tried it at home, and in our opinion, it was just as good (after a few tries). The salted/pickled peppers and fermented black beans combined with the fresh fish and fragrant tofu flavor makes this dish delicious and distinctively Hunan. We have also cooked this Duo Jiao Yu fish dish by splitting a whole tilapia which is quite nice, though a bit more involved. That would be a good way to go for all of you ABCs trying to impress your elders! We will have a future post on how to do that, hopefully soon.

What Are “Duo Jiao” (Salted Peppers)?

Duo jiao are a specific kind of salted chilies that are very roughly chopped and “pickled” in brine. You can find them in jars at your local Chinese grocer’s, usually in the sauce aisle. Make sure you’re not just buying chili sauce. They aren’t vinegary, but slightly salty and full of flavor. These chilies are also not as spicy as some of the others you’ll find out there. Try to find the Tantan Xiang brand (pictured below) in your Chinese grocery. Better yet, pull up the photo below on your smartphone or print it out and show the store owner, who may be able to help you find it! Just be careful not to accidentally buy the wrong sauce. There are other chili sauces out there that may look sort of like this one, but they’re WAY too spicy for this dish (there’s this one brand that Judy likes, where the chilies are smaller and chopped thinner…1/2 a teaspoon is enough to add fiery heat to an entire bowl of noodles. The thought of dolloping that stuff all over this dish is just scary). Just make sure you find the right one! Some of the brands actually have a photo of this dish on the front!

Not As Spicy As It Looks

In general, though, the Hunan fish dish looks much spicier than it really is. It’s definitely not for a beginner eater of spicy food, but if you can eat a plate of hot wings and you’re not averse to the idea of tofu, then you’ll love duo jiao yu. Another spicy fish favorite is our Steamed Spicy fish with bean sauce or Dou Ban Yu or if you like something milder and want to learned how to prepare and serve a whole fish at the table, then check out or Cantonese Style Steamed Whole Fish.

Recipe Instructions

Select a large shallow bowl or plate with a 1-inch rim around the sides that will fit nicely into your wok with a shallow steamer rack set up at the bottom. Rinse your fish fillet and pat it dry with a paper towel. Slice the firm tofu, soft tofu, or silken tofu into neat 1/2-inch thick rectangles. Arrange the tofu on your steaming plate or large shallow bowl in two rows. Place the fish filet on top of the tofu. If the fillet is too big for the plate, you can fold the thin tail end and tuck it underneath the rest of the fillet so it fits snugly onto the plate. Combine the soy sauce, jarred hunan chili peppers, and sugar into a bowl and mix well. Spread the mixture evenly over the fish and tofu. Rinse the fermented whole black beans and strain them so any small particles are washed away. Sprinkle them over the top of the dish. They don’t call this dish Duo Jiao Yu (literal translation: “lots of peppers fish”) for nothing! Update: Embarrassed that I got this wrong! Duo Jiao means “chopped pepper” and NOT “lots of peppers”. Typical mistake by an American Born Chinese! Boil 2 cups of water in your wok and turn the heat off. Place the shallow steamer rack in the bottom of the wok, and the plate on top of the rack. Turn the heat back on and wait for the water to come to a gentle simmer. See our post on how to set up a steamer if you’re not familiar with steaming foods in Chinese cooking. Cover the wok and let the dish steam for 12 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and you can poke a butter knife into it with no resistance. You can see that the there is quite a bit of liquid that comes out during the steaming process. Spoon some of that liquid over the top of everything, and garnish with chopped cilantro and scallion. Serve immediately with rice! NOTE: This Duo Jiao Yu dish is often served with noodles rather than tofu. But why decide between the two? Boil some noodles until they’re al dente and keep them loose with a bit of oil. Then, once some of the fish and tofu has been happily consumed, mix the noodles in the sauce and slurp away! If you have any questions about the recipe, (or comments!) let us know down below.