Carping on West Lake Vinegar Fish is one of the classic Chinese dishes, dating back to the Ming Dynasty. Here’s the definitive, authentic recipe.

On a white oval platter lay a carp which, barely 15 minutes earlier, had been swimming in the lake opposite. I was sitting in Louwailou, one of the great restaurants of China, eating their most famous dish, West Lake Vinegar Fish, under the close scrutiny of Mr Tao, the chef who had just cooked it.

“Did the fish remind me of any other flavour?” he asked.

“Now you come to mention it, yes,” I replied, taking another mouthful of the exquisitely sweet, pearly white flesh. “It tastes like crab.”

Mr Tao smiled. Evidently I had passed the test, for he nodded and quickly reassured me that yes, crab was the accepted analogy.

Which goes to show you mustn’t prejudge carp, a fish often accused of having a coarse, muddy taste and, accordingly, enjoys no more than a moderate gastronomic reputation around the world.

But as Mr. Tao explained, there is silver carp, big-head carp and then there is the grass-eating carp of his particular part of China, the eastern province of Zhejiang, which swims in streams of which are neither fast nor too slow.

Interestingly, grass carp still thrive in the waters of the West Lake, which remains unpolluted despite being bordered on one side by the bustling modern capital of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, with a population of one million.

Even more surprising is the unspoilt setting: the hills around West Lake overlap in a dense bloom of trees. Beyond these are ornamental looking mountains, often hung with mist.

The lake itself is fringed with temples, teahouses and ancient pavilions set in formal gardens. Needle-thin causeways connect the mainland with little islands in the middle of the lake-a scene straight from your grandmother’s willow pattern platter.

On the largest of these islands is Louwailou Restaurant, which began life in 1848, just two doors away from its present site, as a modest little but. The first owner was a fisherman who fished West Lake, and from the very beginning, West Lake Vinegar Fish was on the menu. The dish was ordered every day by Yu Yue, A famous man of letters and an equally celebrated drinker. Other famous customers included Sun Yet Sen and Chiang Kai Chek.

A decade of prosperity between 1927 and 1937 ended abruptly with the Japanese invasion, but the restaurant continued operating. Although nationalized after the communist revolution, Louwailou is now a shareholding enterprise, the shareholders mostly its managers and staff.

Louwailou was designated the first Chinese restaurant to receive foreign dignitaries in 1952. Later, Mao Tse Tung’s offsider, Zhou En Lai, took the restaurant under his wing, arranging for renovations of the building, which were carried out from 1978. The present restaurant, three times larger than the original, seats 1,000 people in six elaborate dining halls, including a white and gold Russian Hall, which looks like something from Czarist Russia.

In the lake oat the front door of the restaurant is a pen, consisting of some 20 wire cages, in which the live carp, caught by a contract fisherman, are kept for two days to purge any muddy odour. The restaurant sells about 1,000 of these carp a day, mostly in the form of West Lake Vinegar Fish.

Said to have been the creation of a Su Causeway resident in the Ming Dynasty, West Lake Vinegar Fish is today more of the classic recipes in China, listed in many Chinese cookbooks.

However, having consulted these books, I was interested to see how their authors have overcomplicated the dish. Forget spring onions, garlic, chilli sauce, pepper, sesame oil, peanut oil, MSG and all the other unnecessary frills. Here is the original, authentic recipe. I say this with confidence because I had the dish demonstrated to me twice in one day-first by chef Tao at Louwailou. Then by chef-tutor Li Yu Wei at the Zhejiang polytechnic when I joined in his class of students. In both cases, the list of ingredients and the method were identical.

Although the closest locally available fish to the original is the golden carp caught wild from Lake Taopo(and sold by Cook Strait Seafoods at Moore Wilson Fresh when available, usually on a Saturday), other fish can be substituted. I have successfully experimented with “kelpie”, for example, and even blue cod, a soft-flesh fish which requires minimal boiling if it is not to fall apart.

West Lake Vinegar Fish

1 whole fish, about 800g, or 2 smaller fish

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

3 slices fresh ginger root

2 tablespoons raw or white sugar

2 tablespoons rice wine

2 tablespoons black rice vinegar

1 tablespoon corn flour

extra rice wine and vinegar

Scale and gut the fish. Turn it belly-up and split it in two from head to tail, cutting to one side of the backbone, but leaving a flap of skin so you can open the fish like a book. Splay it out as you would a spatchcocked chicken.

You will now have a thin side and a thick side (with the backbone), Make three deep gashes crossways in the thick side (which will enable the heat to penetrate more evenly), Sprinkle a little rice wine and rice vinegar over the fish and leave for a few minutes while you get the water ready.

Two-thirds fill a wok or big pot with water, add the ginger (this is to remove any “fishy” ordours) and bring to a rolling boil. The water must be boiling rather than merely simmering, so the fish cooks quickly, but not boiling so furiously that its flavour disappears into the water.

Place the fish in the water, cover until it come back to the boil, and gently boil, allowing 3-4 minutes for a medium (600-800g) fish, or just two minutes for smaller fish. Ladle hot water over the thickest part during cooking. When the eyes of the fish begin to pot out, the fish is done.

Use two fish slices to carefully transfer he cooked fish to a warmed platter, and let the residual heat finis the cooking while you prepare the sauce.

Tip off all but one cup of the fish cooking water. Pick out and discard the ginger slices. Return the wok to the heat and add the soy sauce, rice wine and sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the black rice vinegar. Mix the cornflour with a little water to make a paste and stir into the sauce. Bring to the boil to thicken into a dark glossy sauce.

Pour the sauce over the fish and serve whole. Provide chopsticks so guests can pick morsels of fish directly from the platter, and a bowl for the bones. Serves tow.

David Burton traveled to China as a guest of the Information Office of Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government, with assistance from the Asia 2000 Foundation.