Steamed fish head with chopped chillies

What makes it steamed fish head with chopped chillies

• The head of a bighead carp, split in half and laid open.
• Covered in duòjiāo — chopped chillies salted and fermented — so it's salty, sour and hot at once.
• Steamed, then doused in smoking oil.

Where it comes from

Perhaps the best-known dish in Hunan. Its origin is usually told as a story about a Qing-dynasty scholar who, fleeing trouble, was fed a fish head steamed under chillies by a poor farming family — a tale that's widely repeated but hard to pin down.

The fish is bighead carp, whose large, fatty head is prized in much of China. Noodles are often dropped into the chilli-red juices at the end.

How it varies

Two-colour fish head

Red salted chillies on one half, yellow or green pickled chillies on the other.

With noodles

Plain noodles tossed through the juices once the fish is eaten.