Not from the seaside, I can't figure out the difference between Wangchao and salmon, octopus, cuttlefish and squid. I thought they were all the same. I want to say a few more words about watching the tide: watching the tide is similar to octopus and cuttlefish, with two rows of suction cups. However, watching the tide and octopus are all eight-wrist, that is, what people usually call eight claws, and octopus is commonly known as octopus. And salmon, cuttlefish and squid are ten-wrist. Although I am from Taizhou, it took me quite a long time to understand their subtle differences. Looking at the tide, it usually lives in the mud hole on the beach. When the tide rises, it climbs out of the hole and looks at it, waving its wrist as if looking forward to the arrival of the tide, hence the name "Looking at the tide". Since the tide is observed, the Mid-Autumn Festival tide is the largest in August, so the tide caught in the middle of August in the lunar calendar is also the largest.
Looking at the tide, there are some ways to eat it, such as stir-frying, braising, boiling, etc. I think the more delicious seafood is, the more suitable it is to use simple cooking methods, such as steaming, such as boiling, and it is enough to cook it in seven or eight minutes. Take its original flavor and dip it in vinegar, which is extremely delicious. If you use thick oil sauce to make it red, all you eat is the flavor of seasoning, but you lose the true taste of seafood. When people in Taizhou cook shrimp, they scoop it up with water and eat it in other seafood restaurants. I always feel that what I eat is not shrimp, but a mouthful of seasoning.
The clear soup in Yuhuan is really delicious. However, I saw several watchdogs floating in the clear soup, and the soup was sprinkled with green chopped green onion. The watchdogs seemed to swim in it, and the clear water was on the end. I picked one up and put it in my mouth. When I bit it in my mouth, I felt that the sucker was still shrinking, and it was extremely delicious. It's too rare to taste, and it slides into the stomach. Some people who eat Wangchao for the first time, when they see Wangchao, pick up the big one and swallow it. As a result, Wangchao is stuck in the throat, and they can't get up, down or down, hanging dry, looking quite embarrassed.
The tide-watching in Sanmen Lipu is also quite famous, as evidenced by three specialty ballads:
"Qimen blue crab jumping fish, flat rock mud snail snake clams, Dongguo moss iron field oysters, bean noodles across the taro beside the pavilion, fresh and thin shrimps in Yanzhan, yellow croaker with cat's head and fat, smiling at the tide in Lipu, and delicious seafood in Donggang". The watchful tide in Lipu matches the watchful tide in Yuhuan. There are many kinds of seafood that can be cooked into soup, but I don't think any kind of soup is as fresh, fragrant and thick as sand garlic soup. If it must be compared, only puffer fish soup can be compared with it. The softness and flavor of puffer fish soup are similar to sand garlic soup, but not as strong as sand garlic soup. Yuhuan fish ball soup is very delicious, but its freshness is fresh and not thick enough. In a word, the soup cooked with garlic is fresh with high concentration, which is worthy of using the word "its freshness is incomparable".
Allium sativum is a coelenterate, and its scientific name is anemone. Anemone is a big family, with more than 500 species. This kind of Allium sativum that we often eat is called starworm anemone. Anemones like to perch on sand. This fellow can't live without the sea. Once out of the water, it collapses like a pile of mud within a few minutes. As soon as it is put into the water, it squirms its barrel-shaped body. When it was in the water, it was as big as a duck's egg. After it was made into fresh crispy garlic soup, it was the concentrated essence, and its size was reduced to half of that of spring rolls. The crispy garlic soup looks a little cloudy, but it seems not refreshing. In fact, it is very delicious. The umami flavor runs into the soup and grabs the heart. It is wrapped between the lips and teeth, which makes the taste buds feel happy. For people who eat this soup for the first time, it is definitely a shock, because this soup is so rare and delicious! The taste of sand garlic is also special. It is crunchy with a bite, which is tough with crispness. The sand garlic cooked in several hotels in Wenling is very tasty, and there is braised sand garlic in Sanmen, but I think it is better to cook the soup with sand garlic because it tastes authentic.
Taizhou people only say that sand garlic is a tonic, saying that it has the effect of nourishing yin and strengthening yang, so it is called Cordyceps sinensis in the sea, among which yellow wine is the best for stewing sand garlic. Foreigners come to Taizhou to eat seafood, and Taizhou people sometimes order a crisp garlic soup. If outsiders get to the bottom of it, Taizhou people often look at each other during the dinner and refuse to say more. Of course, there are also opportunities to lead to pornographic jokes. In this way, garlic has become the most ambiguous of all seafood. People in Taizhou eat seafood and pay attention to the season. What seafood to eat in what season is very important. Seaside people say "plum blossoms in the snow in the first month, peach blossoms in February, boiled garlic in March, and no scales in April". Indeed, people in the countryside don't know that "three giant salamanders and four giant salamanders" are the most delicious in March of the lunar calendar.
The pomfret in March of the lunar calendar is the favorite of Taizhou people. The fresh pomfret is flat and wide, and its white abdomen is like a silk Chinese-style chest covering, slippery and shiny. Dogs don't like to eat fish, and they have too many thorns, except pomfret, which has less thorns because of its tender and fat meat. Fresh pomfret, braised and steamed are delicious. One year, my friend gave me a big bag of fresh seafood, such as fish, shrimps and crabs, which was so fresh that it smelled of the sea. One of the big pomfrets, which was as big as a cattail fan, made me worry-how could a family of three be so big?
Seafood such as pomfret must be eaten while it is hot. If it is cold, the umami will "run away" and the fishy smell will come out. Li Yu said in "Casual Love": "The best taste of fish is fresh, and the best taste of fresh fish is at the moment when it is first cooked." You're absolutely right.
People in Taizhou like to cook pomfret together with rice cakes. After cooking, pomfret meat is tender, smooth and refreshing, and seafood permeates into the originally bland rice cakes, which has a unique flavor. The garlic-seedling pomfret and pomfret rice cakes cooked in the small restaurant in Sanmen Silin are worthy of praise. They are the kind of home-cooked cooking methods, and nothing is put in them, but they are better than those cooked in the big restaurant. Food is really among the people. A few years ago, plum fish was not on the table. Mei Tong fish has a big head, so it is also called Mei Tong with a big head. Because of its yellow color, it looks like young large yellow croaker, and those who don't know the goods call it small yellow croaker. In the old days, when the fish was abundant, the people of Taizhou, little seafood, such as Mei Tong Fish, Jellyfish and Squid Shrimp, looked down on them, and only Portunus (or paste crab), yellow croaker, giant fish and pomfret fish were valued by Taizhou people. Now that seafood is scarce, the value of these little seafood has doubled, and they are treated the same as big fish and big meat.
In the early years, Mei Tong fish on the vegetable market only sold for two or three yuan a catty. Mei Tong fish is not expensive, but it tastes extremely delicious. In particular, Mei Tong fish, which has just been caught, has bright eyes and fresh bones, and is used for steaming. In addition, Shaoxing rice wine and shredded ginger are sprinkled with some salt, which makes it delicious and tender. Go to the food stall to eat seafood, which is just salvaged. It's only an hour or two away from the water, so it's hard to eat it. The newly salvaged Mei Tong fish is fresh, fat and tender, and it is extremely beautiful. The fish is eaten with some My Sweetie. It can be described as the highest realm of seafood-sweetness.
Some people say that instead of eating frozen yellow croaker in high-end restaurants, it is better to eat fresh Mei Tong fish at the seaside stalls. When eating seafood, you can't judge the grade by the price. Delicious and delicious is the last word. Mud-coated fish is called Dan Hu here. The body is as big as a finger, with a wide mouth and quick teeth, and two eyes burst out. Bouncing is good at jumping, spreading its fins and opening its mouth fiercely, digging holes and living, and jumping on the painted surface for food at low tide. Bullet painting is also the kind of little seafood who lives in the beach. At the beginning of Xia Zhishi, plum rains came, and perhaps the weather was too sultry. At this time, mudskipping was the easiest to be caught. Someone once told me vividly at the dinner table the way to catch a bullet: before the high tide, insert a bamboo tube section by section in the beach and make a fake cave to confuse and jump into it. Taizhou folk proverb says, "Be sure not to be steady, but play and drill a bamboo stick", that is, the bullet is confused and falls into a trap. Another catching method is more interesting. Fishermen use a fish bowl shaped like a big dustpan to walk and catch on the beach, forcing mudskippers into the fish bowl like ducks. In Shitang, I have seen fishermen standing on mud horses, fishing with a fishing rod and playing hoops. When the line is thrown, each fish is accurate.
Bullet painting was originally inconspicuous, but now it has doubled in value. A plate of dried plum vegetables is burned and painted, which is expensive.
Bullet painting is a good gentleman in seafood, just like the joker in mahjong. It is delicious with dried plums. With pickles, delicious; Braised in brown sauce, delicious; Soup, delicious; Smoke is smoked into bullets and dried, which is also delicious. In a word, bullet-coated meat is tender and fragrant, and no matter how it is cooked, it will not change its delicious taste, which is a good product. I remember that there used to be a small restaurant near Wenling Cultural Center, which was very burnt. People in Taizhou have established collocation for cooking seafood, for example, spring coating with dried mushrooms, braised pomfret with garlic sprouts or rice cakes, small yellow croaker with snow vegetables, boiled hairtail strips with radishes, fried yellow croaker soup with white gourd, and fried eel with celery. Don't underestimate this collocation, which can best reflect the essence of food.
"Hairtail waxed with two sharp ends and a sword in the mouth". The hairtail just fished up is silvery and suitable for steaming. It is served with cooking wine and shredded ginger, smeared with salt, sprinkled with a few white sugar and steamed on the stove for ten minutes. The fresh one is fat, the fat one is sweet, the sweet one is fresh, and the three flavors blend together, which is inappropriately delicious. Hairtail must be eaten locally, and around the winter solstice is the best season. The hairtail produced in tropical waters is big, but it is too big to be used, and its meat is thick, so it is meaningless to eat. The same is true for African crucian carp. The coarse and lesbian meat is not as tender as the wild crucian carp.
Taizhou people like to cook hairtail with shredded radish, which seems to be rare in other places. I think Taizhou people are smart and creative in cooking vegetables, and hairtail cooking shredded vegetables can also be regarded as the expression of Taizhou humanistic spirit of "aura" and "creativity" The delicious taste of hairtail is absorbed by radish, while shredded radish removes the fishy smell of hairtail. It's true that you have me and I have you. Not only that, the shredded radish is tender and slag, and the soup has a strong taste of hairtail. Whether you eat fish or radish, the taste is very good. Therefore, Taizhou folk song "Fish Name of the Moon Festival" says, "Don't rest when you bring fish to cook vegetables in December", so why not stop eating and taste delicious? Diners from all walks of life have commented on Taizhou seafood, which can be summed up in one sentence: the shape is unknown, the eating method is unheard of, and the taste is consistent, that is, "fresh"!