After the Qingming Dynasty, it was gu rain, and the editor was hungry again:
A sea full of mackerel dumplings swam over!!!
Every year in April, around the time of the Qing Dynasty, it is the spring flood of mackerel (mackerel), and at this time, mackerel can be eaten in the northern and southern coastal areas of the country.
However, the editor heard a surprising news:
The mackerel that we use to make dumplings can sell for 200 pieces in Xiangshan, Zhejiang!
And they also use mackerel soup and steaming!
Xiaobian kept stuffing the hand of the dumpling in his mouth, and suddenly stopped:
Mackerel dumplings are spicy and delicious, just 30 pieces a plate... Have we been treating mackerel badly!
It turned out to be a frog prince???
Ran goose, the dumpling stuffing of the people of Shandong, and the sky-high price of mackerel from Zhejiang's small partners, is not a kind.
Mackerel is just one of the common names of mackerel, Shandong and Liaoning call it mackerel, Baoyu District calls it mackerel, and some places call it mackerel.
In Zhejiang, everyone gave it a particularly poetic name:
Chūn (chūn) 鯃 (wú), alias ChuanWu.
Whether it is called a bass or a mackerel, whether it is a spring season or a dumpling filling, it is all different varieties.
According to the data provided by anglers, we usually call the mackerel, there are currently 18 species found in the world, of which the largest distribution in China, about four:
The most famous "sky-high price goods" loved by the people of Zhoushan is the blue-spotted mackerel.
Its English name is "Japanese Spanish mackerel" – the Japanese mackerel, which means that the Japanese love this mackerel as much as they do.
▲ In Japan, mackerel is a common raw material for sashimi
The raw materials for mackerel dumpling filling, which are abundant in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, are mostly Chinese mackerel (occasionally there may be other varieties, but the Chinese mackerel is most widely distributed in the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea), and the blue-spotted mackerel is not a species.
In Guangdong, Fujian and other places, especially in Chaoshan Province, people love Kang's mackerel more - because it is native to Foshan, it is a hometown of Huang Feihong and Ip Man.
▲ A tabby is its symbol
But why is Zhoushan's mackerel so much more expensive than its friends?
The reason is, it is pregnant ...
From April to June, the mackerel spring flood season is also their spawning period. They swim along the coastline for a year, eat seafood, come to the warm inner bay area to lay eggs, and Hangzhou Bay, which is getting warmer in the spring, is the natural first choice for pregnancy.
Mackerel during the spawning period, the meat begins to become fat and delicate, the age and size of the fish are just right, the original quality of the blue-spotted mackerel, the taste is naturally more delicious.
At this time, the back of the fish will have distinct dark blue spots, which will flash blue and green and silver in the sun. Blue-spotted white belly, slightly curved fish head, cut flesh bright red, is the authentic blue-spotted mackerel.
Therefore, every year during the Qingming Season, it is a super Internet celebrity in the free mail area, just listed for two or three hundred yuan per kilogram, still in short supply.
Compared with the much-loved blue-spotted mackerel, the Shandong chinese mackerel is like a steel warrior.
Unlike the high appearance of the blue-spotted mackerel, it has the appearance of a predator in the sea, and it is a water monster with a full face.
It also has a luvolous tonnage: in 2013, Zhoushan caught a giant mackerel, 228 cm long and weighing 168 pounds.
However, the mackerel king caught by Qingdao people is also more than two meters, weighing 280 pounds, flicking the tail, you can pia fly an adult editor.
About the same length, but weighed more than a hundred pounds, which shows the muscle density of the Chinese mackerel.
The consequence is that this kind of mackerel is really not related to the "fat and tender", the tight meat quality, the ultra-low "body fat rate", can be called Peng Yuyan in the sea.
However, no matter how fierce the goose is, in the hands of Shandong people, you are not a dumpling!
For the mackerel bought at a high price, the way Zhejiang people eat it is enough to surprise the Shandong people:
Snow vegetable Chuanwu, like Qingtuan, roast goose, snail and river shrimp, is a Qingming delicacy of Ningbo people.
Chuanwu is the common name given to mackerel by locals. Pickled snow vegetables are the favorite salty dishes of Ningbo people.
Cut into sections, fry on both sides until golden brown, sauté the green onion and ginger in another oil pan, add the soaked snow vegetables and stir-fry, then put the fried fish segments, add water and simmer, the soup is more fragrant. Put some pepper noodles before the pot comes out, sprinkle a handful of green onions, and live together.
Steamed mackerel is even more worthy of the way to eat the fresh fish:
Celery cut into sections to lay the bottom, support the fish body, the belly of the fish stuffed with onion and ginger, steamed and drizzled with soy sauce, for the Zhejiang people who can steam everything, it is not difficult.
However, the people of Shandong see steamed mackerel, just like they saw Li Dazui steamed yellow croaker and crispy fried cucumber in "Wulin Wai Biography".
Steaming, at least the treatment that pomfret can enjoy, boiling soup, spotted cod, cod, can't cook clams boiled cabbage, seafood knotty soup, whole mackerel boiling soup? Joke.
▲ Mackerel? Beaten into balls to cook soup is not even close
The old man of Jiaodong said that in the past, mackerel was the most inconspicuous, and it was completely regarded as "the most despicable person of the sea fish".
This is not surprising, when many people from other parts of Shandong came to Qingdao for dinner, the first impression was one sentence:
"Take the fish as a bun and nibble on it".
The practice of fish is often a sentence: "Take the fish as meat stew".
On the Jiaodong Peninsula, which is rich in fishery resources, fish used to be cheaper than meat and rice noodles, and it was common to take fish as food.
A fried fish with a deep mouth, removed from the big thorns, children take it as a steamed bun to eat, and the fish meat falls down, which is a luxury that inland residents did not dare to think in the early years.
Similarly, because there are too many fish, everyone is divided into three, six, nine and so on. Compared with the more tender fish, the strong and strong mackerel (Chinese mackerel) is really not ranked.
Braised mackerel, fried mackerel, fried salted mackerel, smoked mackerel necessary for the New Year's Festival, and sour and spicy mackerel balls that are necessary for Qingdao seafood restaurants... It's almost all meat.
Xiaobian's mother also said that mackerel stew pork belly is always a dish left by the master chef of The Jinan canteen for the family.
▲ Smoked mackerel often eaten in the New Year
According to this kind of thinking, it is normal for mackerel to chop and stuff dumplings.
But this "fish as meat" way of eating looks rough, but it actually has strict standards.
First of all, the mackerel filling can be chopped out, not afraid of trouble, you can use chopsticks to stir into a mushroom in one direction, but never allow the blender to break.
The purpose of filling mackerel is to dissolve the tightness of the meat and leave it delicious, rather than stirring it into a tasteless fish puree.
Similarly, authentic mackerel dumplings must be filled with pork and leeks.
Pure mackerel dumplings without pork must be tear-inducing in taste: the outer crust is the dough, and the inside is the dough.
Fat and lean pork and stubble leeks, bringing richer chewiness, combined with fish filling, increase the delicious and full juice, and more importantly, fragrant.
This natural meat flavor also brings the third precept of the mackerel dumpling precept:
It is forbidden to put all spices such as five-spice powder pepper powder and thirteen spices, wine and sesame oil, and the offender is expelled from the mackerel dumpling world.
In order to improve freshness, Shandong people who love onion and ginger will put a little onion and ginger water, and they can be green onion and ginger for everything, which is a rare delicacy:
Eating green onions without seeing shallots, eating ginger without seeing ginger, and never allowing debris and heavy flavor to take away the freshness of mackerel.
As for what kind of wrapping? As long as the filling is fragrant, the skin is rolled well, how big the love bag is, how much can be eaten.
The food of the people of Shandong is all oversized, and the mackerel dumplings are no exception.
The old fisherman said that the dumplings are big, one is because the fish on the beach are expensive, and the other is because of the sea operation, eating quickly and quickly, and it is best to eat more than a dozen.
Therefore, not long ago, the mackerel dumplings donated by Shandong to Wuhan are not small, especially suitable for front-line medical workers.
It doesn't matter if it's bigger, after all, compared to a lot of greasy dumpling fillings, mackerel dumplings are not greasy.
Therefore, even if the food in the north and south fights every day, mackerel dumplings are still the northern food that the old food in the south is most willing to accept.
The last person to win this award, I am afraid that it is Peking duck, right?
In Qingdao, this is the season when the sons-in-law carry the mackerel to see the old man.
"When the rain comes, the mackerel jumps, and the people laugh", it is said that the proverb from the mouth of the sand in Laoshan, Qingdao, later became a well-known custom in Qingdao.
It is said that once upon a time there was an old fisherman who adopted an orphan, raised him to adulthood, and married his daughter to him.
One day, the old man was seriously ill and wanted to eat fresh fish, the son-in-law ignored the wind and waves, went out to sea to fight a mackerel back, but when the daughter burned the fish, the old man had died.
The chronological provenance of this story is difficult to examine. The only thing that is certain is that when the story appeared in Zhejiang, the father-in-law in it was passed down as the mother-in-law.
▲ Ningbo brother holding a mackerel
This is probably the two places of men who love mackerel, different considerations:
Zhejiang boys have to bother, perhaps the mother-in-law's continuous test;
And shandong boy to consider, probably how good a hard dish, in order to let Weng son-in-law drink to the fullest, he is not drunk by the old man to lie down.
The love of the people in the parcel area for the horses comes from the time and place, giving them the talent to pursue umami.
Shandong people can never give up the affordable mackerel, which comes from unforgettable kindness:
This thick and fresh food grain, in countless years of misfortune and abundance, has been given to everyone who loves it, regardless of hardship or abundance.
In the years when "fishing people are poor all the world" and have to feed on fish, in the years when many Chinese spend their entire lives and cannot appreciate the "fresh", in each of our festivals without fish...
It was it that accompanied us through so many years.
It deserves a word of apology, a word of thanks, and it is worth our pre-dinner prayer for it on the table again and again Chinese: there are fish every year.