How to make pickled fish in Dong Township

1. Clean the pickling barrel: The new barrel should be soaked in river water for two days. After it is absolutely leak-free, soak it in plant ash water for 2 hours, and then Wash it with clean water, then wipe it with leeks or radish to remove the wood smell, and dry it for later use.

2. Fish selection: Catch the fish, remove the miscellaneous fish, select more than 250 grams of green carp (red carp is prone to acidity), put it into a basket, put the basket into the river and keep it for a day. So that the fish can be rinsed with clean water and the feces and sediment in the gills can be discharged. The next day, take out the back of the fish, cut it into two halves connected to the abdomen, discard the gills and internal organs, then wash away the blood with clean water, gently shake off the water, spread the fish flat and put it in a basin for 1 hour, and drain the water .

3. Salt soaking: Put the fish in another basin, rub the fish body evenly with fine salt (fish-salt ratio 10:1.5), and then spread it layer by layer in the basin. Sprinkle a layer of covering salt on top and cover the pot with gauze to prevent flies from laying eggs inside and deteriorating. After salting for 16 to 52 hours, the fish body is hardened and ready for barreling.

4. Brewing sweet wine: During the salting process of fish body, sweet wine is brewed at the same time. Use high-quality glutinous rice and brew according to conventional methods (if you don’t want to pickle sour and sweet wine, you don’t need to add sweet wine).

5. Preparation of pickled glutinous rice: use glutinous rice as the main raw material, steam the glutinous rice, spread it out, sprinkle with a little soil salt water (or plant ash leaching water), red yeast rice, pepper, sweet wine grains, Stir cumin, garlic, chili powder, crushed ginger, patchouli powder, white wine and appropriate amount of salt (about 1/10 of the total salt) to form marinated rice.

6. Barrel loading: first spread 2 cm of marinated rice into the marinating bucket, pick up the salted raw fish, spread it on the barrel, and then put 1.5 cm of marinated rice on the fish. , so that the fish gravy is laid out alternately. When placing a layer, press it flat with your hands until it is laid out. Leave 20 cm at the mouth of the bucket. Then sprinkle the salt water of the original pickled fish, then press the pressing plate, and then press Add pebbles (press on 1/2 of the weight first, then all of them after 2 days).

Pickling tools:

1. Pickling barrel: Use hardwood slats to make the barrel, and use bamboo hoops to hoop the barrel into a round barrel with a large top and a small bottom. The size of the bucket depends on how much fish needs to be marinated, ranging from 5 kilograms, 10 kilograms, 15 kilograms, 25 kilograms... The height of the barrel is 0.8 to 0.9 meters, and the diameter ratio of the mouth to the bottom is 10:7.

2. Pressing stone: Use pebbles with smooth surface, thick center and thin edges as the pressing stone. The weight of the pressing stone is equal to 2/3 of the weight of the pickled fish. However, if the pickled fish is less than 5 kilograms, then The weight of the pressure stone used is equal to that of the fish.

3. Pressure pad plate: the first layer of padding material under the pressure stone. It is commonly made of grass, palm leaves, calla leaves, palm rake leaves, bamboo shoot shells, etc. and is woven under the barrel mouth. A round or two semi-circular spacers about 20 cm in size (some also use wooden boards).

4. Production time: Generally in the eighth and ninth months of the lunar calendar, after the white dew, the weather is cool and the temperature is suitable. The field carp selected at this time (caught in the river can also be used, but the quality of other fish after pickling is poor) ), strong and plump, pickled into salted fish, bright color, good quality