The yellow eel is a very strange creature, it is a female in its infancy, and after laying eggs, it becomes a male, called sexual reversal. In may and August of the reproductive season, it will undergo a major reversal of life, changing from female to male. The simplest way to distinguish between females with a body length below 35 cm, and a partial reversal when the body length is 36 to 48 cm, and the male and female individuals are almost equal, belonging to the hermaphrodites, and the body is more than 50 cm long and all male.
The eel doesn't look a little beautiful, or even a little ugly. But it has never fallen off the topic list at the table of Chinese, many provinces have their own selfish eel methods, Hakka traditional eel eating method, eel + pork belly + fried golden tofu, stew that delicious ah. Wenzhou people eat a plate of fragrant eel is a must, someone introduced the alternative way to eat eel, the bamboo tube drilled into the yellow eel, and then put in the wood stove simmered. Splitting the bamboo tube and tearing it into a strip of fried chili garlic is the supreme umami taste.
Eating eels in the Jiangnan area can probably find dozens of ways to eat, especially in Huaiyang cuisine, the long fish feast is a feast made of eels. Soft-pocketed long fish, braised saddle qiao, simmered navel gate, stewed tiger tail have become the classic and eternal famous dishes in Huaiyang cuisine, the taste of southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu was originally very different, but it can level southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu, so that they shut up and do not argue that they can reach a consensus only eel.
Jiangsu has so many eel methods, two methods are extreme, one is to gradually lose the difficult to find stew raw knock, and the other is a very famous eel paste, the former dish from Nanjing is classified as Jinling cuisine, the latter is actually very popular in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, but now most people think it is Su Bang cuisine, so go to Suzhou to eat special food, Xiang Leng Eel paste is in the front of each restaurant menu.
Some people have deduced that the stew was originally a stewed sheng, because the braised eel was placed together to resemble a sheng gong when it was plated, and then it was "stewed raw knock". From the name of the dish, you can know its cooking skills, stewing means slow fire stew, raw knocking is to kill the eel alive boneless, it is best to be a pound of three or a pound of two or so, some people say that eel is best to use large eel, one for more than one pound. Repeatedly pounding the back of the eel with a wooden pound, between a dozen taps and a dozen until the meat is fleshy, making the meat looser and softer when it is cooked, these are the two main points of making a stew.
In addition, on the cooking utensils, the use of a casserole pot is also the key to a stew to form a delicious dish, "hot pot one point of meat old, less than one point of soup widow". “
Is the stewed dish from Jinling or from Huaiyang cuisine? Yu Bin, a professor at Nanjing University, wrote in the book "Taste of Nanjing": "100% of the stew is Nanjing cuisine. This dish is self-created by Hu Changling, who is known as the 'King of Jinling Chef', Hu is a Nantong native, but his fame is in Nanjing in the Republic of China era, the first good district, the high-ranking officials and nobles gathered, and the chef can show his skills. Stewed raw knocking should be created at this time. ”
Compared with the legend of stewing raw knocking, xiang oil eel paste is a dish that can enter the ordinary family, it has a homely taste, the production process is not complicated, the sound and color are complete, when serving, only to see the eel in the pot like DaiShan surrounded, the cooked lard in the pot is still boiling, the dish is colorful, the aroma is overflowing, soft and tender, the people are hot, and the teeth and cheeks are fragrant. To make oil eel paste, the eel should choose the pen rod eel, which is too coarse and too coarse, and is not suitable for eel paste, and can only be used to make "eel segment", also known as "eel tube". However, if it is too thin yellow eel, because of its heavy soil, it is not suitable for eel paste.
The firing of eel paste is a must for cooking, and "roasting" kung fu is commonly used: the fire is not urgent and tepid, and it is slowly boiled after turning the heat until the marinade naturally thickens.
A pot of eel paste uses more than ten kinds of spices, and there are only three kinds of oil: lard when sautéing eel shreds, vegetable oil when boiling, and sesame oil when thickening. Garlic paste, ginger shredded, pepper, etc. are as indispensable as the companions in coffee.
The ratio of seasoned soy sauce to sugar must be just right. Too sweet, the dish is too frivolous to eat, without substance; too much soy sauce, appears rough and not delicate. What you want is that vague sense of proportion. The sound of "la la" seems to inject vitality into the dish, and the exquisite agility of a sound of oil eel paste is in this dish.
Do you like to sound eel paste or Republic of China cuisine stew raw knock?