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Shunde steamed fish mouth
Every time you send a delicacy, you drop the powder, why do some people not like the food so much? When the little people come to the world, they can't do great things, and they don't lose money to satisfy their appetites! This issue mainly talks about the celebrity past of personal contact, historical palm and current event commentary. Talking about food is a byproduct of making documentaries, but it is a major event in life.
Go to a company in Shunde, at noon dinner, the host asked, what do you want to eat?
What to eat? My principle of eating out is to eat local ingredients and dishes, but the food and beverage in the entire Pearl River Delta is so highly homogeneous that it is impossible to say who is different from whom.
The owner thought about it and suddenly asked: Have you ever eaten a steamed fish mouth?
Fish mouth? Can fish mouths also be made into dishes independently? What fish's mouth can be independently dished? I quickly imagined that if a fish's mouth could be steamed and eaten, then the fish must not be small, and the fish's mouth meat must be very fat.
What is a special fish? I asked.
The host said that if there is any special fish, it is grass carp.
Grass carp mouth? Does that grass carp have meat in its mouth? The whole fish head seems to have nothing but the oracle bone, which can also become a famous dish?
I remember the habit of eating fish in my hometown, where fish heads are not welcome.
When I was a child, I lived in an era of material shortage, the supply of aquatic products and seafood in the market was very limited, and occasionally there would be carp, striped fish, fathead fish, and they were all dead. There are few varieties and the way to eat is simple. In the impression, the most common practice is to boil, boil carp, boil strip fish, boil small yellow fish, and there is a famous dish in the hometown called sticking dumplings boiled small fish.
Boiling is roughly equivalent to braised braised elsewhere.
The most commonly boiled is carp, the hometown is called a kidnapper, the method is very heavy, white sugar stir-fried color, heavy salt, heavy oil, out of the pot are dark red.
For fish made according to this method, only the head of the fish is left with an empty shell, and there is no other content except for the fish soup contained in it. The general method of consumption is to give the body of the fish to the child and the head of the fish to the adult. Because the content of the fish body is the most abundant, the fish head is basically a chicken rib.
The fish head is chicken ribs, so what about the steamed fish mouth?
The master said, if you have not eaten, then you are guaranteed to eat today for a lifetime.
When he said this, I was naturally full of expectations in my heart. Waiting for the whiskers, the fish mouths to be served, the waiter brought up the plate, I counted, a large plate, 12 long fish mouths in a radial shape, sprinkled with green onion and coriander.
I casually picked one up and put it in my mouth, so to speak, until now I don't know how to describe the feeling at that time, the tip of my tongue touched a smooth, soft, fragrant substance, an inexplicable aroma, straight to the mouth and nose, that feeling, I still can't find anything to compare it to it, at that time only felt the taste buds suddenly excited, all over the body.
Is this a grass carp head? Is this a grass carp mouth?
That's right, that's grass carp.
What is this smooth, soft thing?
That's a fish cloud.
Fish clouds, I heard about it for the first time. So, digging deeper and deeper, what is the fish cloud?
Some people say that fish clouds are the brain marrow inside the fish's head, but this is not the case. Fish clouds are two small pieces of fish meat in the fish head, on both sides of the gills, which are white translucent gelatinous, also known as fish walnut meat, that is, the meat of the pharynx and palate of the fish head, fat and boneless, soft and tender and delicious.
Fish clouds are rich in colloidal protein, and the delicious taste of steamed fish mouths comes from it, which is the taste buds of gourmets.
The chef said that just because of the fish cloud, in Cantonese cuisine, the fish head has an extraordinary position, the fish head pot, the fish head soup, are Cantonese cuisine, the fish head itself is an independent dish.
In many wet markets, fish heads are sold single- and are more expensive than whole fish. For example, bighead carp (that is, fathead fish).
In my hometown, the head of the river fish is the kidnapper (carp), the head of the sea fish is the ants (flounder), and the fat head fish is not popular. In the fish market in Guangdong, the situation is reversed, and the bighead carp is expensive because of its large head, because of its abundant fish clouds.
Regarding the head of bighead carp, Li Shizhen also commented in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "The beauty of bighead carp lies in the head. ”
Food critic Shen Hongfei said: "The delicious taste of fish heads lies entirely in a 'slippery' word, rich in gelatinous quality, but also with a certain bone feeling." As for the purpose of the existence of bone sense, it is also to reflect this 'slippery' word. ”
Specific to the steamed fish mouth, the owner said that there are many fish that can be steamed fish mouth, grass carp, carp, silver carp, bighead carp, can be.
These are all very common fish species, and it seems that the delicacy has nothing to do with fish. What does that have to do with? Why is it that the braised fish head is chicken ribs, while the steamed fish mouth is so delicious? The chef said it had to do with cooking methods.
Braised will boil the fish skin and the fish clouds inside are boiled dry, although the fish meat can be tasted, but frozen, the fish skin becomes dry skin, can only instigate, the food is tasteless, like chicken ribs, which is also the reason why when I was a child, the fish head was left for adults.
Chefs say there are only two ways to preserve the delicious taste of fish clouds — steaming and boiling.
To make a fish mouth, steaming is king, and it is a means to keep the fish original and delicious. Braised, it is eaten with the aroma of soy sauce and salt and even peppercorns, while steaming retains the soft, fragrant taste of the fish.
The chef stressed that it should be noted that steaming is also easy to steam the fish "old", and overheating will steam the fish "bursting the skin". He introduced a unique secret recipe, after the fish is cleaned, before the dish into the pot, put four or five fresh shrimp on the fish, when steaming, the shrimp due to heat and dripping shrimp juice constantly moisturizes the fish body, so that the fish skin will not "explode", the two shrimp umami taste can penetrate into the fish body, three, this cooking method, even if it is a little overheated, the fish is not easy to steam "old". Remove the shrimp before going on stage, and enjoy a delicious river fresh.
However, can you imagine that this dish is made by shrimp as the hero's dish behind the scenes, and what is the price?
This is the first time I've heard a comment about steaming and braising. His words remind me of my first experience of eating steamed fish.
Before the mid-eighties, I didn't know that fish could be steamed. That year, a colleague invited me to his house, and both of them were relatively Yanqing people, and her wife used fish from her hometown reservoir to make a steamed fish.
Her method of handling the fish seems to me to be very fresh, descaled, dissected, cleansed the internal organs, flower knife, simmered in cooking wine, salt for a while, and then steamed in the pot. Before cooking, sprinkle with green onions, parsley and drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil.
I was dizzy from the first bite, and to be honest, I found that the delicious taste of live fish steaming was better than that of braised and fried, which was almost better than that of the Pacific Ocean.
In the 1980s, squirrel cinnamon fish was popular for a while. The most memorable thing is that in the east of Dongdan Intersection, south of the road, there is a restaurant called Luochuan Hotel, which is a Sichuan restaurant, but it is good at making squirrel fish. Dipped in batter fried, arranged into a three-dimensional shape, poured with a layer of soup, sweet silk, very fashionable for a while. But since eating the steamed fish made by my colleague's wife, I eat the fish, and steaming is the first choice.
The steamed fish mouth made me discover the beauty of the fish clouds.
As for the production method of the fish mouth, it is very simple, first wash the grass carp mouth, chop the pieces to use, put the fish mouth on the plate, drizzle with soy sauce, add salt, chicken essence, pepper, flower carving wine seasoning, steam for 8 minutes to take out, pour hot oil, red oil can be.
It should be noted here that the preparation of soy sauce is very important, otherwise it will directly affect the taste. This can be a key point to test the chef's level.
Since then, I have also eaten fish lips, the method is much the same as the fish mouth, amazingly the choice of ingredients is smaller, limited to the lips, full of a plate of fish lips, one bite at a time, really can eat you to the point where you only know the delicious taste of the fish and six relatives do not recognize.
There are many ways to cook fish mouths, steaming, soy sauce, chopped peppers, tofu, minced garlic, taste buds to eat to the world, dishes to keep pace with the times, creative chefs, there will be a variety of very self-imaginative.
Steamed fish mouth, Beijing's Lichang seafood also do, but I don't know whether it is a psychological problem or the facts, I always feel that the steamed fish mouth of the restaurant in Shunde is insurmountable.