Remove the internal organs of the fish that have just been salvaged, because the internal organs of fish larger than fingers are bitter. This is a troublesome thing, but even the smallest fish can be very skilled for people living by the water. Grilled fish is a meticulous job. If you are impatient, you may break the whole fish if you move too hard. A layer of salt can keep fresh and improve the taste, which is the way to make many foods. Before smoking and roasting, some people steam the fish until it is cooked in seven or eight minutes. Cooked bran, orange peel and rice bran are not only by-products of farming, but also natural spices. They can be smoked for a few days until the fish is nine minutes dry. In fact, experienced people just need to look at the color of fish to know whether they can cook. Out of the oven means that the finished grilled fish can be bagged, the skin is yellow, and the slightly wet fish is delicious and easy to store. There are various cooking methods for grilled fish: first, fry with low fire, and then add garlic, ginger, perilla, dried pepper and so on. Add water and cook slowly with low fire until the meat is soft. There are also foods steamed directly with seasonings. Fresh fish may not taste good because of its fishy smell, but smoked fish does not have this defect.
In the waters near Maotian Town, there used to be two famous ancient market towns, the upstream of which was called "Shui Gu Town" and the downstream was called "Yanggucheng". Because of the water, both places are rich in grilled fish. The cargo ship from here, besides loading tea, will also load a lot of grilled fish, and journey to the south will go down the river until Hankou. After they sold out their local products, they brought back a lot of miscellaneous products from there, which was the use of water by ancient businessmen.
There is also a story circulating in this water area: Zhu Houzhao, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, swam in Lianshui and spent the night in the ancient sheep market. A farmer served a plate of grilled fish. Zhu Houzhao felt good after eating, so he wrote five big characters: "Imperial Grilled Fish". The truth of the story cannot be verified, but it has a history of training the water army here in the late Qing Dynasty. In the fourth year of Xianfeng, Zeng Guofan went to Hengyang after being defeated by Taiping rebels in Jinggang. He arranged for his younger brother to return to his hometown to form an amphibious army, and chose to camp in the ancient waters of Yanggu here. This is the army. Later, he helped Zeng Guofan win Tianjing and capture the Heavenly Palace. Xiang soldiers also took grilled fish out of Xiangxiang and Hunan. Today, fishermen here still use Fangcheng Array and Ecstasy Array practiced by Xiang Army to fish. It is said that Mao Zedong likes to eat this local dish with strong rural flavor since he was a child, and he is also famous for grilled fish.
Now fishermen in the reservoir area have set up fish farming cooperatives, and the original self-sufficient production has been replaced by workshop production, and they have registered their own trademarks, and their products have also been sold everywhere. Although I always think that authentic things are the best, it is not a bad thing if it can drive the economy and benefit the people!