Chapter 8 Several Special Seafoods in Shandong Peninsula

A few days ago, I went to a seafood restaurant to eat seafood with a few friends from different provinces. Everyone boasted about how delicious the seafood in their hometown was, but a friend from Rizhao, Shandong, Mr. Guo, just kept his head down and chewed without making a sound.He was resolute and dull, and seeing everyone refusing to give in to each other, he didn't want to mess with everyone. I personally have an experience with eating seafood. Although there are many seafood that are close to the tropics or subtropics, the temperature is high all year round, the animals grow rapidly, the fibers are loose, and the natural freshness is poor.Although the seafood from the Shandong Peninsula is not as delicate and tender as the seafood from the Northeast, compared with the seafood from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, it seems that each has its own advantages and disadvantages.Brother Guo doesn't want to argue with you, so I will speak for you.

Take Rizhao as an example. Generally, shrimps are as big as prawns. Four or five shrimps are enough for a catty. Smaller ones are like shrimp skins. They are salvaged from the seaside with fine nets. If you are lucky, you can catch three hundred catties in half a day.Eating dumplings stuffed with shrimps in Taiwan is already considered a luxury, but eating dumplings stuffed with leeks and prawns in Rizhao is cheaper than pork and cabbage, which proves how much prawns are.At the beginning of the Republic of China, when the Beiyang line ships passed through Yantai, Weihai, most of them did not stop at the shore, but anchored in the sea. Hawkers rowed sampans and boarded the ships to sell dried bighead fish and dried prawns. One hundred pairs only sold one piece of ocean, which could hold a large basket. It is used to braise pork belly in brown sauce. It is not only fragrant but also delicious and smooth. It is a delicacy for eating steamed buns.There is also a variant of shrimp, about five inches long and one inch thick, which is similar in shape to a shrimp, but with a pair of crab claws on its head. Some locals call it a tiger shrimp, and some call it a shrimp woman. The head is cut off. Soak the tail in salt water overnight, the meat has become semi-solidified, no need to cook, just dip it in high-vinegar ginger soy sauce, sip it with your mouth, all the meat in the shell can be sucked out, which is better than the full-fledged food in Suzhou But also delicious.Wang Kezhuang (Renkan), the No. 1 scholar in the Qing Dynasty, wrote a poem about prawns in five ancient poems. He said that after eating prawns, he felt that any delicacies from mountains and seas were not tasty enough within three days. This shows how fresh the prawns are.

Longkou in Huang County, Shandong Peninsula is also an area rich in seafood. The local Fuyuan Restaurant has a dish called "stir-fried sea nails".Sea nails grow on the beach by the sea, about three inches long and seven or eight centimeters wide, with a thin light blue shell, just like a human fingernail.Usually, half of it is exposed on the beach to receive the moisture of the sun and air. When there is a noise or someone passes by, it feels the vibration and immediately retracts, just like pulling a finger back into the sand. People who don't know what's going on can really scare you.The women living at the seaside of Longkou are experts at digging sea nails. They are sharp-eyed and accurate. When they saw that it had just retracted into the hole, they immediately hooked it out with an iron hook and fried it with garlic and amaranth. Seafood can't compare.

Yantai has a seafood called "sea intestines", which seems to have never been seen in other coastal areas, and it can be said to be a specialty of Yantai.Sea intestines are finger-thin, purple-red sea worms nearly a foot long, just like the red earthworms that were once raised in Taiwan.Dip it with ginger wine, soy sauce, high vinegar pepper, fry it in the pan, and serve it with wine. It is extremely crispy and more delicious than the Hakka dish "fried crispy intestines". It's a must.However, the locals pick up and eat the whole sea intestine once it is scalded in boiling water, just like eating red earthworms.

There are also a lot of jellyfish along the coast of Yantai. When the ship is moored on the sea, you can see large pieces of jellyfish swimming around on the sea surface. The cook on the boat hooks them up with an iron hook, cuts off a few pieces with a sharp knife on the deck, and then puts them on the sea. Going back to the sea, this kind of freshly cut jellyfish, no matter whether it is the head or the skin, is crispy and refreshing when fried in a pan. It is much crispier than the scrambled egg skin in the northern restaurant here. Stone scale fish is a special product of Heilongtan in Mount Tai. Anyone who has climbed to the top of Mount Tai must go down through Heilongtan.The water in Heilongtan is as black as ink, and it is bottomless. The mountains and waterfalls are cascading and rushing down, arousing countless whirlpools in the pool.The Taoist priest at Yuhuangding said: "There is an oolong living in the pool, so it looks sinister." There is a small fish growing in the pool, with pointed head and thin body, firm scales and thick flesh. It is called "stone scale fish" locally.The tenderness of the fish is very similar to the saury produced in Lixiahe in northern Jiangsu, but there are no spines.However, this kind of fish is not very tasty when fried, steamed, or braised in soy sauce. It is best to add thin shredded radish and stew the soup with high heat. The soup is thick and white, like milk soup. Green onions, without fishy smell, can be regarded as a must.Eating fish with vinegar sauce is like eating hairy crabs.If you use a high fire and let the soup boil a few more times, the fish will melt and melt into the soup, leaving only a triangular skeleton.All the big restaurants in Tai'an, Shandong will make this kind of Shilin fish soup, but it is difficult to get it in other counties.

Listen to what I said, apart from jellyfish, which are common in Shandong, other sea nails and sea intestines have not even been heard of, so everyone can talk about seafood.In short, seafood squash produced in cold regions is not only delicate in texture, but also high in freshness. Friends who love seafood will definitely be able to appreciate it.