Practice and Formula of Jiangchuan Saltwater Fish

Accessories/magnolia slices, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, seasoning/pepper, monosodium glutamate, salt, chicken essence and sesame oil.

Production process:

After cutting the fish open, dig out the gills, marinate the fish with cooking wine to remove the fishy smell, and then soak the fish in oil (which is helpful for modeling). Leave the oil in the pot, stir-fry the wild peppers until fragrant, and pour in boiling water and auxiliary materials (the water and the auxiliary materials are horizontal). Submerged auxiliary materials are put into a container, then boiled in fish head for a while, and seasoning/salt, chicken essence, monosodium glutamate and sesame oil are put into the container.

Before the dish is finished, stir-fry some wild peppers and pickled peppers in the pot, which is not only delicious, but also comfortable in color and looks appetizing.

Tips:

1. The secret of fish tenderness lies in boiling water. The water in saltwater fish should be strong salt water.

2. Because the boiling point of water is 100 degrees, the boiling point of salt water is higher than that of clean water. how much is it? It depends on the concentration of salt water. The higher the concentration, the higher the boiling point.

3. When the fish is cooked in clean water at 100 degree, the surface of the fish is very easy to boil, but the temperature is very high in salt water. As soon as the salt water is boiled, the fish will be fine and the surface of the fish will be complete.

It is generally imagined that fish cooked in strong salt water must be very salty, but it is not. You can try. Very tender.

5. How do saltwater fish make it fresh and spicy? It is generally believed that releasing more sea peppers is naturally spicy. Actually, it is not.

6. The spicy taste of raw sea pepper must be fully reflected in the soup with less oil. Therefore, to be a saltwater fish, you must be "stingy" with oil, and it is best to use lard as oil.

Li Yanli opened a restaurant in Jiangchuan for more than 20 years, and it was in her restaurant that Song Dangxing ate salty fish. Saltwater fish was originally a method for fishermen in Xingyun Lake, Jiangchuan County to treat inexhaustible fresh fish after catching fish. In Jiangchuan County, almost every household can cook salted fish. The practice is actually very simple. After the live fish is slaughtered and washed, it can be put into salt water with various seasonings and cooked for a long time. The most important thing is to master the heat and don't let the fish be cooked.

Li Jixiu: "Cook slowly, you must control the water to dry. The longer it is cooked, the harder the fish will be and will not rot. "

Reporter: "Do you have to control this fire?"

Xiaozhuang Village, Dajie Town, Jiangchuan County, Wang Bo: "You can cook with big fire first, and then slowly cook with small fire. It is delicious when cooked. "

Jiangchuan people like to eat salted fish, and some vendors will cook salted fish and sell them at the farmers' market. People who want to eat saltwater fish will come here to save trouble. In the 1990s, some hotels in Jiangchuan improved the processing methods of saltwater fish and moved them from the folk dining table to hotels, so saltwater fish attracted the appetite of a large number of tourists in Jiangchuan.

Li Yanli: "Come to Jiangchuan to order, because this is a special dish, and you need more. Then, after eating, they will take some back. "

Reporter: "How many saltwater fish can you sell in this shop a year?"

Li Sixian Hotel Manager: "White fish will sell more than 40 tons a year, and this grass carp will sell more than 20 tons."

In 2004, after eating salted fish in a restaurant in Li Yanli, Song Dangxing bought some specially for relatives and friends to taste in Hubei. As a result, everyone said it was good. Let him bring more next time. Seeing this situation, Song Dangxing had an idea.

Song Dangxing: "Just discuss with Teacher Yue whether you can use this as a product when cooking pickles."

Yue Xiuhui was inspired by Song Dangxing's words. Although the popularity of Jiangchuan saltwater fish was limited to Yunnan Province at that time, his long-term cooperation with local distributors on pickles made him full of confidence in saltwater fish going out.

Yue Xiuhui: "I think this suggestion he made is good, which is an advantage of our place. Since customers from other provinces have requirements, he feels good and offered to let us do it. Later, he promoted this product to us. "

In the autumn of 2004, Yue Xiuhui decided to develop a new product-saltwater fish. However, he did not rush to produce immediately, but took technicians to taste salt water fish all over Jiangchuan. In addition to farmers' homes, restaurants in the county town are also frequented by Yue Xiuhui.

Yue Xiuhui: "When we started, we took the advantages of many families. The first thing is to investigate. I have eaten all these places where Jiangchuan makes salt water fish, and I have compared them. "

After a trip, Yue Xiuhui found that the delicious bighead carp in memory was rarely made into salt water fish, because it was too expensive, and the local small white fish was the most used in restaurants.

Li Sixian Hotel Manager: "The bighead fish is too expensive, more than 400 yuan a catty, too expensive. This white fish is only 12 yuan a catty."

Because of its low price, small white fish has replaced big head fish as a raw material in saltwater fish, and its sales in restaurants are also the best. However, Yue Xiuhui found through experiments that among saltwater fish, small white fish is not suitable for large-scale industrial processing. He tried carp, crucian carp, grass carp and other varieties, and finally decided to use grass carp as raw material.

Yue Xiuhui: "Because of small fish like this, look at these packaged fish. These thorns may puncture the bag. This has this taste, but after all, grass carp has better quality and longer shelf life, which is more suitable for finishing. "

After more than a year of trial and error, nearly 2 tons of fish were wasted. At the beginning of 2006, Yue Xiuhui finally began to produce saltwater fish on a large scale, and the raw materials were bought in reservoirs in mountainous areas.

Reporter: "What kind of fish does he usually want?"

He Youhuan, a farmer in Anhua Yi Township, Jiangchuan County, Yunnan Province: "Generally, it is grass carp."

Yang Shukun, a farmer in Anhua Yi Township, Jiangchuan County, Yunnan Province: "A few hundred pieces of bighead carp a catty. Anyway, I am afraid that no one will buy it, and the value is too high. "

Although grass carp is Yue Xiuhui's last choice to replace bighead carp, he has more specific requirements for grass carp.

Yue Xiuhui: "Generally, it is a fish weighing more than 2.5 kilograms. One of the reasons for this specification is that its yield is higher, so the meat quality is better and the taste is better. This is also the result of our long-term experiments. "

The water quality of reservoirs in these mountainous areas is alkaline, and the meat quality of grass carp is hard. So, every afternoon, Yue Xiuhui collects about 1 ton of grass carp and transports it to the processing workshop in the county. After slaughter and cleaning, he removed the fish head and tail, cut them into 5cm wide, and cooked them with ingredients.

Yue Xiuhui: "In order to ensure the inherent flavor of this famous local product, our company adopts the most traditional processing technology and has not changed. You see, we all use this clay pot to burn firewood and cook it slowly. "

According to the traditional Jiangchuan folk processing technology of saltwater fish, these fish should be cooked all night with low fire until the salt water is completely boiled, so that the flavor of seasoning can penetrate into the fish. Therefore, workers have to work overtime all night to master the heat, which is also the most critical link in the processing of saltwater fish in factories.

Yue Xiuhui: "From last night 10 to now 10 or so, it's basically ok. Now that it's done, there's still a little temperature to let it cool down again, about 12 hour, and then this saltwater fish is ready. "

Saltwater fish in Jiangchuan County can be preserved for a long time and have a unique taste. It not only has the spicy taste of pickled fish, but also has the fresh sweetness of live fish, and the meat is delicate and refreshing.

Salt water fish's practice is also very simple: after cutting the fish open, dig the gills and wash them, add appropriate amount of water, salt and various condiments to cook them, and then put the fish in a pot and cook them slowly with slow fire until the water is dry. Of course, the most memorable condiments are peppers and pepper leaves, otherwise salt-water fish will definitely not be fragrant. But it's not easy to make a salty fish. The most difficult thing to grasp is the heat, especially in the cooking process. You can't turn the fish upside down when cooking, otherwise it will break, which will affect the appearance and people's appetite. You can't stir the fish when cooking. You should be careful not to cook the fish, but you should not leave too much water, otherwise it will be tasteless and will not hold. Over the years, the local people have summed up a set of experiences in cooking salted fish: first, pay attention to not having too much water in the pot, and second, keep the fire small, so that the fish can earn hard and have bones and muscles. Of course, cooking salt water must be very elegant. If it can be cooked with dried salted fish, it is best. If there is no such salt water, it is best to fry the salt in a pot until it turns red, and then boil it in water. Saltwater fish, cooked well, can't be clipped with chopsticks casually, and tastes salty. It will never go bad in a pickle jar for a year or so.

For people around Fuxian Lake, it is really the job of every housewife to cook salted fish. Most farmers along Fuxian Lake make a living by fishing. Fish that can't be sold have to be taken home, and delicious salty fish cooked by capable housewives are put in jars. On the day when there was no food, a few pieces were steamed, which became delicious for the whole family. The best saltwater fish is anti-wave fish. Anti-wave fish is small, but its thorns are soft and smooth, and it tastes delicious. Because it lives in pollution-free Fuxian Lake, it lives by eating microorganisms in the water, and its stomach is clean, so it is not necessary to cut open its intestines to eat anti-wave fish. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer anti-wave fish now, so it's good to see them, let alone eat them.

There is an interesting record about the origin of saltwater fish in the history books: During the reign of Kangxi, Zhao, the minister of Yunnan, returned to Beijing with a specialty saltwater fish, and one day retired from North Korea to entertain his colleagues at home. Saltwater fish was served at the dinner, which was delicious and delicious, and everyone was full of praise. It happened that the son of heaven was cruising outside the wall when he suddenly smelled a strange smell. When he found it coming from the yard, he went into the yard to make a detailed investigation, and the ministers knelt down to meet him. The son of heaven scolded, "What do lovers in the world eat for this gathering?" Aren't you afraid that I'll ask you the crime of lying to you? Minister of Yunnan urgently offered salted fish, saying that this is a local product of my hometown and I dare not offer it. The son of heaven tasted it without saying anything. After a while, he said, this thing should only exist in the sky. How many times can I taste it on earth? As a tribute! Since then, saltwater fish has been listed as a tribute, which is paid every year.