Chapter 37 Spring River water rises saury fat

Two days ago, Mr. Chen Jiaji wrote an article "White Fish in the Ice of the Songhua River" in the "Vientiane" edition. The fish (also called Bingchaner by the locals) is delicate and delicious.I think anyone who has eaten the white fish from the Songhua River will salivate after seeing it. Chinese people pay attention to shad from Jiaoshan, four-gill perch from Songhua River, live mandarin fish from Xunyang River, and large white fish from Songhua River. These four kinds of fish are called the four great fish.In fact, in terms of the tenderness and smoothness of the fish, the tenderness of these four kinds of fish is inferior to that of the saury.The real name of swordfish is lava fish, also known as saury fish. It has a long and narrow body with narrow and thin sides, resembling a sharp knife, so it is called swordfish.

The saury produced in Taihu Lake has thin and white scales, and the whole body is like silver. It is whiter than the whitebait in Weihe, Tianjin. Fishermen in Taihu Lake call it Huyan, and it is not considered the top grade of saury.The best saury is produced in the waters where the river and the sea meet, in the area of ​​Guazhou, Jiangsu. At the end of April and the beginning of May, they swim back to the area of ​​Lixia River. At this time, the water in the spring river rises. Good time.No matter how it is cooked, there is no greasy stagnation, which hinders the mouth.The ancients said that the shad has many thorns, the crabapple has no fragrance, and Zeng Zi could not write poems, these are the three great regrets in the world.The mouth and taste are of course different from each other. I have tasted the shad fish. The beauty of shad fish lies in the meat with scales, which contains ointment. , this part of the fish is indeed extremely plump, but the rest of the fish is rough and astringent, and there is nothing to recommend it.

When I was young, I used to be friendly with Sanwu, and I used a boat to catch fresh shad on the Jiaoshan River, and immediately cooked and served wine on the boat. The fresh shad that just came out of the water can be said to be the freshest shad, but there are still some. The fish feels too thick.The ancients often regarded prickly shad as a pity, but in fact the essence of shad is in the scales, although there are many thorns, it is not a problem.But the saury is different. The whole body is densely covered with fine spines, and the meat is more tender where there are more spines.When eating fish in the north, except for the fish-eating skills of the people in Tianjin, which can be compared with those in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, most northerners look at the fish with prickly fish, and there is nothing they can do about it.

One year at a certain banquet in Yangzhou, the guests were all gourmet experts, and it was in the saury season. The author praised the saury meat was too delicious, but unfortunately the spines were too dense to be enjoyed.Mr. Xu Shaopu, the manager of Qianyiyong Salt Store, made an impromptu agreement to eat saury noodles at Yanzhan Morning Tea the next day.At that time, a total of seven or eight guests came in response to the appointment.Yangzhou people have always eaten in a refined manner, but the bowls used for eating noodles are really not small, a little more delicate than the small sea bowls in the north. Each person has a big bowl of stewed noodles with saury fish (the stewed noodles are like the shabu-shabu noodles in the north) .Yurun goose yellow, picked saury meat, each bowl is spread thickly, according to my estimation, it takes about seven to eight saury meat to cover each bowl.

At that time, I felt very surprised. Where did Chef Ruo Xu specialize in picking fish bones?Later, a deacon of the salt store revealed that there is no way to remove the spines of saury fish, even if they are too thin, there is an ingenious method for removing the spines of saury fish, and the difficult problems will be solved naturally.For saury noodles, it is best to use the mushroom soup, whichever is clear and fragrant, add a little Jingdong vegetables and braise in soy sauce, choose a large iron pot, use a wooden lid to wash it with alkaline water, and put the raw olives (also called sandalwood green fruits) Squeeze the juice, smear it on the shaded side of the pot cover, and then arrange the cooked saury on the shaded side of the pot cover.Separate the head, middle and tail into three sections with thin bamboo slices, and embed the fish firmly to prevent the whole fish from slipping off. Put the raw fish juice in the pot and pour in chicken broth or broth, then cover the pot tightly.After about an hour, the fish meat was steamed and smoked by the boiling soup, and naturally all fell into the soup, and the whole fish bone was still completely stuck to the shade of the pot cover.The saury noodles made with this method can be eaten with peace of mind without worrying about the fishbone getting stuck in the throat.

Later, it was concocted according to the law, and it was the same in all trials. From then on, every saury season, I always have to eat a few times.Now Qi Chi Hai Yu, although there are occasional saury for sale, the Taiwanese saury also has a slightly sweet fragrance, but the plumpness and mellowness are much different from the mainland saury.Watching the wind and thinking about it immediately aroused infinite nostalgia.