Chapter 33 Chapter 33 The Fish Eater Says

An excellent gourmet should master at least 20 methods of cooking fish. Once for a treat, I cooked a fish feast with eight dishes in total, all of which were fish.In order, there are Wuchang fish steamed, Gannan fried fish, Honghu steamed fish, Sichuan watercress fish, etc., which fully let me show my skills and satisfy the vanity of the virtuoso.Of course, when I drink alone on weekdays, I don’t wait for the pleasure. When I buy a fish, I simply chop it into three pieces, fry the head and tail with oil, add tofu to cook the soup, and braise the middle piece in soy sauce. To make one fish and eat two, the best is catfish, which has only one main spine.Wash the catfish and remove the intestines (wash the blood quickly to keep it fresh), peel off the meat on both sides, cut into thin slices, put a small amount of starch to catch it (first fry the condiment onion, ginger, garlic or shredded pepper for later use), fry it in hot oil, Add seasonings, cook and serve immediately. The fried fish fillets are fresh, tender and smooth. If paired with red and green chili shreds and golden ginger shreds, the color is also good.Catfish head and tail and bone spur soup, you can put tofu or shredded radish, shredded mustard greens are also good.If there is black carp, fried fish fillets would be even better, but this fish is hard to find.

When living in Beijing, there are always the same types of fish, but they are cheap. The price of silver carp is comparable to that of vegetables, so I buy more silver carp. The fish boss often encourages me to buy carp. Unfortunately, Beijing carp is very fishy and must be cramped. , add cooking wine to get rid of the fishy smell.Pulling the tendons of carp is a technique. Cut the fish into several sections and shoot them flat with a knife. The tendons of the carp will emerge, and you can use the camera to clamp them and pull them out.But I am too lazy to do such tedious things, I eat silver carp.Beijing crucian carp is very expensive and grows up in stagnant water.Good fish grow up in the running water of the river and are streamlined. The fish in the stagnant water are wide and fat, with loose flesh, and they all look like old ladies.When I buy crucian carp, I don't want the fish owner to open it up. I just ask him to remove the scales and gills. The fish owner is puzzled.I am really particular about fish eaters, I know fish offal is a good thing, I have a soft spot for fish offal, I always live in Wuchang Meiyuan some time every year, the fish boss there knows to remove the guts of the fish and keep them , its price is higher than that of fish, I always buy offal fish there.Add dry red chili to cook offal fish, it tastes spicy and slightly bitter, but the fish taste is very strong, after eating the fish, you will feel that the fish is so bland, no matter how you cook it.In Beijing, the fish boss doesn’t specialize in selling fish offal, so he can’t face himself if he wants to ask for it, so he just thinks it’s a pity for them to throw it away.After people from Zhejiang came to sell fish, offal fish began to be sold, but it was ridiculously expensive at 8 yuan a catty.

Fish offal is better than fish meat, and it has the function of improving eyesight. I eat fish offal because I want to maintain my eyes. However, there is another good thing on fish, which is fish scales.For example, when there are many fish scales, collect and wash them, boil fish scale jelly with slow fire, fish scale jelly is similar to jelly, cut into strips and fry with pepper and garlic. The complexion is as white and tender as porcelain, and forever elastic... In Beijing, these two things are discarded, which makes me and other good eaters feel unwilling, just like when I read articles by third-rate writers who throw away details and talk about events, what I eat is boring fish body, not essence.