As one of the eight famous dishes in Jingzhou, fish cake has a long history. Legend has it that when Shun Di and his second wife, Nvying and E Huang visited Jiangling in southern China, E Huang fell ill and had a sore throat. He wanted to eat fish, but hated fishbones, so Nv Ying, under the guidance of local fishermen, combined his cooking skills and made fish cakes for E Huang. E Huang ate it and recovered quickly. Shun Di heard about it and praised it. Fish cakes have been widely circulated in Jingchu since then. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a "Lily Fish Village" outside the south gate of Jinan City (the capital of Chu State and the site of Jinan City in the north of Jingzhou). Chu Zhuangwang accidentally ate this fish village on an outing one day and couldn't put it down, so it was cited as the first dish of Chu Palace. Until the Qing Dynasty, it still appeared in court dishes. It is said that Gan Long blurted out after tasting Jingzhou Flower Cake: Fish can't be eaten, but Lily Cake can be eaten.

Lily fresh fish cake is made of fresh pomfret surimi from pollution-free freshwater lake in Jianghan Plain. Based on the classic recipes of Chu culture, it is carefully made by modern normal temperature preservation technology, which is the crystallization of Jingchu food culture. Fish cake is fragrant and tender, and rich in high-quality protein, nicotinic acid, taurine, DHA, EPA, vitamins A, D, B 1, B2 and various inorganic salts necessary for human body. It is a nutritious food that conforms to the way of modern people's health preservation. Fish cake fully adopts the traditional formula that has lasted for thousands of years, and at the same time, it fully grasps the internal physical structure and formation principle of surimi products by using modern experimental technology to maximize its taste and deliciousness. Fish cake insists on spreading the fish and rice culture in Jingchu. While spreading the culture of fish cake, we should stick to the traditional formula, take the road of organic food, resolutely resist the alienation of fish cake by modern industrial food additives, and provide simple delicacy and nutrition for modern people.

1. Selection of raw materials: Because fish cakes require high elasticity and color, white fish with fresh raw materials, less fat, delicious meat and strong elasticity should be selected. Generally, frozen raw minced fish or frozen fish is used. 2. Beating: Before beating, the processing technology of fish cake is basically the same as the general production technology of surimi products, but the rinsing technology is more important (for fish with strong elasticity, white color and good taste, rinsing is not needed). Grinding method: divided into air grinding, salt grinding and local grinding (stirring grinding). Empty grinding can destroy fish cell fibers, then add salt to promote the dissolution of salt-soluble proteins to form a certain viscosity, and then add other auxiliary materials to stir and grind for about 20-30 minutes. 3. Laying and molding: The molding of fish cakes is often done by hand in small-scale production, but it requires quite skilled technology. Mechanized molding is gradually adopted now. 4. Heating: There are two kinds of heating for fish cakes: baking and cooking. Baking is to put the fish cake on the conveyor belt, pass through the tunnel infrared baking machine for 20 ~ 30 seconds to make the surface colorful and shiny, and then bake it. General cooking is more common. At present, Japan has adopted continuous digester to realize mechanized cooking. The fish cakes produced in China are all boiled fish cakes, the temperature is 95 ~ 100℃, the heating time is about 45 minutes, and the central temperature is above 75℃. The best method is to keep the molded fish cake at 45 ~ 50℃ for 20 ~ 30 minutes, and then quickly raise the temperature to 90 ~ 100℃ for 20 ~ 30 minutes. The elasticity of the fish cake made in this way will be greatly improved. breaded fish stick

5. Cooling: After the fish cake is cooked, it should be quickly cooled in cold water (10 ~ 15℃) to make the fish cake absorb the water lost during the heating process and prevent wrinkling and browning due to drying. And can make the surface of the fish cake soft and smooth. After rapid cooling, the center temperature of the fish cake is still very high. Generally put on a cold shelf to cool naturally. The air in the cooling room should be purified and the appropriate temperature should be controlled. Finally, the surface of fish cake should be sterilized by ultraviolet germicidal lamp. 6. Packaging and storage: The completely cooled fish cake can be packaged by an automatic packaging machine. The packaged fish cakes are packed in wooden cases and refrigerated (0℃ 1℃) for shipment. Generally, fish cakes can be stored at normal temperature (15 ~ 20℃) for 3 ~ 5 days, and can be stored in cold storage for about 20 ~ 30 days. Fish cake packaging machines are rarely used in China, and most of them are sold in time after production; Sometimes, after processing, they are packed in oil paper or plastic bags and stored in cold storage for shipment and sale. Lily Fish Cake also introduced fish cakes packaged at home and abroad for 6 months at room temperature, which greatly reduced the storage and transportation costs of fish cakes and expanded the market contact area of fish cakes. Quality standard The finished fish cake requires neat and beautiful appearance, tender and elastic meat, unique flavor and moderate salinity. The above information is for reference only, which is different from the actual operation experience of Lily Fresh Fish Cake Workshop. For more information, please visit the Fish Cake blog.

Handmade snakehead cake

In the book "Famous Cuisine in China" edited by famous scholars Ran Xiande and Qu Xianyin, there is a record of making fish cakes by hand with mandarin fish:

Main materials and auxiliary materials

3,000 grams of mandarin fish, 5 grams of pepper, 2.5 grams of yellow wine, 40 grams of chopped green onion, 0/00 grams of Jiang Mo/kloc, 0/0 of eggs, 7.5 grams of monosodium glutamate, 250 grams of water-based magnolia slices, 250 grams of wet starch, 40 grams of water-based auricularia auricula and 65,438+of refined salt.

Cooking method

1. Wash Siniperca chuatsi, cut it open from the back, remove bones, chest spines and tail skin, scrape off1000g of white fish, soak it in clear water for half an hour, drain the blood, and chop it into velvet with double knives; Chop the red fish for later use; Shell the egg, and put the yolk and egg white into two bowls respectively; Slice magnolia officinalis into thin slices for later use. 2. Add 50 grams of wet starch, 25 grams of Jiang Mo, 0/5 grams of refined salt/kloc-,2.5 grams of monosodium glutamate, and 3 pieces of egg white, and stir evenly to form diced meat. Pour the minced fish into a pot, add clean water 1000g, wet starch 150g, 7 egg whites and 2.5g Jiang Mo, stir well, then add refined salt 100g and monosodium glutamate, continue stirring for 5 minutes, and stir the fish into fish paste. Spread the wet gauze on the steamer, pour in the fish paste and smooth it (4 cm thick), cover it, steam it in boiling water for 30 minutes, uncover the steamer cover, dry the air and moisture on the surface of the fish cake with clean gauze, mix it with two egg yolks and spread it on the cake surface. Cover the cage and steam for 5 minutes. After cooling, turn it over on the chopping board and cut it into 6.6 cm long. 1 cm thick fish cake (240 pieces). 3. Put the red minced fish into a bowl and add 1250g water. 50 g of wet starch, 8 egg yolks, 50 g of Jiang Mo, 1 g of monosodium glutamate and 25 g of refined salt were evenly stirred to form minced fish. Put the wok on the fire, pour in sesame oil and heat it to 60%. Squeeze the minced fish into small balls by hand, fry them in a pot until brown, and put them in 10 bowls respectively. Lily fish cake

Process key

1. Scales and gills of Siniperca chuatsi are removed, then the fish is cut from the back, the middle bones and lateral spines are removed, and the white fish is peeled from the tail. 2. When chopping minced fish, the chopping board should be padded with meat skin. When steaming in the cage, the cage should be padded with thick gauze, and the red and white minced fish should be strictly separated.