Old-school grandpa
Abstract: There is a classic dish "squirrel mandarin fish" in Suzhou cuisine, but for the name of this dish, there are different names, so is it squirrel mandarin fish or pine nut mandarin fish, is it mandarin fish or osmanthus fish?
There is a classic dish in Suzhou cuisine "squirrel mandarin fish", but for the name of this dish, there are different names, so is it squirrel mandarin fish or pine nut mandarin fish, is it mandarin fish or cinnamon fish?
The origin of this dish of squirrel mandarin fish, there are several theories, but the same, are said to be Qianlong under the Jiangnan, because of this and that reason, the chef had to flower the fish knife, pickle, pat powder, oil pouring, pouring juice, and finally made into a squirrel shape, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, sweet and sour, after which the practice of squirrel fish has spread, and gradually become a classic dish of Suzhou cuisine.
In the mid-Qing Dynasty cooking book "Tuning Ding Ji", there is a record of "squirrel fish": "Take seasonal fish, remove the belly bone, drag the egg yolk, fry the yellow, and make a squirrel style." Oil, soy sauce burned. The "seasonal fish" here is the "mandarin fish", so it can be seen that the squirrel mandarin fish did begin to circulate during the Qianlong period. It's just that the "squirrel fish" in the Qing Dynasty was hanging egg yolk paste on the fish, while today's "squirrel fish" is to shoot dry starch. There is also the Qing Dynasty "squirrel fish" is fried after adding soy sauce to braised, and today it is improved to fry and pour the cooked marinade on it.
Squirrel mandarin fish is a kung fu dish, mandarin fish remove the scales, internal organs washed, cut off the fish head, spread out, pat flat; remove the largest spine bone on the fish, but pay attention not to cut the belly of the fish, but also leave a small section of the spine at the tail; and then change the knife to cut into fish fillet flowers, cut into a flower knife with a diagonal knife, the knife should be four-fifths deeper than the fish body, but be careful not to cut the skin, open a hole in the tail, and pull the tail out of the knife. This knife work requires a certain amount of skill, and it cannot be done without some effort.
The second step is to shoot the powder, it is best to use starch, not corn starch, because the fish fried by the corn starch is not crispy. When shooting powder, pay attention to the powder on all the gaps on the fish, and finally need to gently shake and pat to shoot off the excess powder. This is a high-tech job, light excess powder can not be shaken off, heavy and the powder is shaken away.
The third step is to fry the fish, first fry the fish head, when frying, use chopsticks to open the mouth a little, so that the fish head can stand on the plate when it is plated, and the shape is better. Frying is the key to this dish, so the amount of oil used to fry the fish body is much more than that of ordinary dishes, and the oil temperature is 60% when the pan is cooked. In order to ensure that the fish tail can be tilted when it is plated, it is necessary to use chopsticks to clamp the fish tail, first fry it and set it, and then hold the fish tail and put the fish body off the pot. Fry the fish until golden brown.
Since the knife has been changed before, the fish is cut into fillet flowers, so after frying, there will be a fluffy appearance of squirrel hair, and the name of squirrel fish is derived from this.
The fried fish is first plated, the head is slightly high, and the tail is upturned, so that the shape is good.
The final step is to mix the sauce, pine nuts, diced carrots, diced bamboo shoots, diced shiitake mushrooms, corn kernels, green beans, shrimp, cooked with tomato sauce, sugar, salt, white vinegar into a sweet and sour marinade, and poured over the fried fish by heat.
The reason why there is a pine nut mandarin fish name, it is likely that there are pine nuts in this sweet and sour sauce, in fact, the name of this dish is squirrel mandarin fish is very clear, one is the shape because of the knife fried, shaped like the fluffy hair of the squirrel, the second is that when the sauce is poured on the fish, it will also make a "squeaky" sound, which is also like the sound of the rat, so it should definitely be called "squirrel mandarin fish".
As for whether it is mandarin fish or cinnamon fish, the answer is actually very clear, of course, mandarin fish.
Mandarin fish live entirely in fresh water all their lives, prefer to live in water bodies with lush aquatic grass and clean water quality, generally lurking under the water during the day, and actively foraging at night. It is a carnivorous fish with a fierce temperament.
Mandarin fish, along with catfish, knife fish and anchovies, are called the four famous species in Jiangnan. Knife fish and anchovies are migratory fish of the Yangtze River, and are called the Three Fresh Rivers together with the pufferfish. Later, due to environmental changes and overfishing, wild anchovies and knifefish have basically disappeared, and in the past two years, a total ban on knifefish has been adopted to protect this species. Wild catfish are also depleting, and only mandarin fish are relatively common.
Mandarin fish is the best mandarin fish in Xijiaxi, Huzhou, Zhejiang. The Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Zhihe once wrote the famous "Fishing Song": "The egret flies in front of the Xisai Mountain, and the peach blossom flows and the mandarin fish is fat." Green straw, green coat, oblique wind and drizzle do not have to return. "It's about the beauty of Gangnam and the fat mandarin fish.
Mandarin mandarin fish is biologically included in the genus Mandarin, so it is clear that it should be mandarin fish. As for the laurel fish, it should be a typo produced according to the pronunciation, or it may be because there are more strokes of "mandarin", and some people are lazy to write "gui".
Mandarin fish has a variety of cooking methods, braised, steamed, soup, grilled can be, of course, the most famous method is naturally squirrel mandarin fish. Squirrel mandarin fish is bright in color, very festive, marinade fiery red fish meat snow white, the taste is crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, the taste is both sweet and sour, there is no large fish bone fish bones. Especially suitable for the elderly and children.
And squirrel fish now not only mandarin fish, but also squirrel yellow fish, squirrel perch and other raw materials, but eat around, or mandarin fish meat, the most suitable for squirrel methods.
(The picture of this article is from the network)