I’ve written a bit about my mother, who moved in with us during the COVID-19 pandemic and lived with us until my husband, kids, and I recently returned to Beijing. My mother was a lifesaver. When she stayed with us from February until July, she helped me with the tasks that have fallen on the shoulders of most mothers, working or not, during this terrible pandemic.
In the mornings, she gave my kids three hours of Mandarin, science, and theater, and art class. (Above, she’s seen acting out a play that she had my kids write, in Chinese.) In the afternoons, I took over to teach the kids English and math. She helped keep the house — a giant 4,000 square foot two-story colonial with a basement — spotlessly clean. And in the late afternoons, I would start cooking. (You might be wondering what my husband was doing. Yes, he had a job, but don’t get me started. I’ll save it for another post. Suffice to say my mother helped keep our marriage from descending into a deep and dark place.)
My mother is many things, but she’s not much of a cook. She had a career, as a scientist, entrepreneur, software engineer, and Six Sigma black belt. That didn’t allow her to spend much time in the kitchen. When I turned to cooking as a career, in my late twenties, it surprised my parents. It wasn’t what immigrant parents who moved to the United States to pursue their Ph.D.’s expected from their children.
While we were in the States until July, I cooked every day but somehow it wasn’t until I returned to Beijing that I thought about making a delicious steamed fish that my mother cooked often when I was a kid. While we were in our 14-day quarantine back in China, I was re-organizing all the cabinets and came across a bottle of Lee Kum Kee Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood. My mother had left it the last time I visited, and the couple of times she cooked for our family, she made the fish with this magic sauce and a couple of other things — but I didn’t exactly know what they were. I still never had made it for myself, after all of these years.
So I called her and got the recipe, not realizing it was quite so easy. A dash of soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil, and if you want to be fancy, a little mirin, just to coat the fish. Then sprinkle it with some shreds of scallions (or leek), cover it all up, and zap it in the microwave. It’s that simple.
It took under ten minutes to put together, from start to finish. And of course, as I ate, I thought of my mom and how many years ago, she’d probably come home from a long day of work and put this dish together for my brother and me. (My father was usually at work until after dinner.)
Heating something in a microwave isn’t really considered cooking, but sometimes, zapping something in the microwave is all you should do after a long day of work, especially if the result is a deliciously tender and flavorful as this.
