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1. Sugar-dried sea cucumber

The live sea cucumber is removed from the intestines and washed, then boiled in water for 3-10 minutes, fished out to dry a little and then buried in sugar, so as to let the heat of the sea cucumber melt the sugar slowly, and then only when the sea cucumber has been soaked in the melted sugar solution for 3-5 days (the purpose is to let the sea cucumber absorb the sugar sufficiently) is the sea cucumber fished out to rinse off the surface of the sugar, and then sent to a ventilated baking room for six or seven days. The sugar is then sent into a ventilated baking room and baked for six or seven days before the sugar-dried sea cucumber is made.

To make dried sea cucumber with sugar, the amount of sugar added can be controlled. If more sugar is added and soaked for a long time, the sugar in the sea cucumber will account for more than 30% of the total weight, and when it is softened and foamed, 3% to 5% of the sea cucumber will become rotten, and it will crumble even if you pinch it gently, not to mention boiling it with water. If the proportion of added sugar only accounts for about 10%, it can also be sold as lightly dried sea cucumber without added sugar, and the price of such dried sea cucumber will be very high, with a price of 2,800 to 5,000 yuan per kilogram.

▲Sea cucumber drying workshop

2, salt-dried sea cucumber

The live sea cucumber is gutted and washed, boiled for 10 minutes, then soaked in saturated brine for 3 to 5 days (so that the sea cucumber can fully absorb the salt), and then put into a drying box for drying after the salt is washed off the surface, so that the salt-dried sea cucumber is made.

The longer the sea cucumber is soaked in salt water, the more salt it has in its body, and of course, it will be "weighed down"; on the other hand, the less salt the sea cucumber has, the more cost-effective the salt-dried sea cucumber will be.

▲Salt water sea cucumber

3, freshly dried sea cucumber

The live sea cucumber is removed from the intestine and washed, boiled in water for 3 to 10 minutes, then fished out after dehydration, and then boiled in fresh water. Finally, it is put into the drying box for drying, and then the finished product is obtained. Good quality of freshly dried sea cucumber can get 15 kilograms of dried product for every kilogram of dried product after rising.

▲Lightly dried sea cucumber

Identification of sugar-dried sea cucumber

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When we go to buy dried sea cucumbers, we are usually easily misled by the vendors - we really think that the darker the color of the sea cucumber, and the straighter the spines of the sea cucumber, the better it is. In fact, the dark and shiny sea cucumbers commonly found in the market are called sugar-dried sea cucumbers, for which each processing plant has its own unique processing technology, and the traders can even make the dried sea cucumbers with added sugar not taste sweet.

So, although there is no uniform standard for processing sugar-dried sea cucumber, we can still identify whether it is sugar-dried sea cucumber or not, generally according to the following four ways to identify:

1, see

Sugar-dried sea cucumber is black in color and bright in appearance.

2, lick

Lick it with your tongue, the one with sweet flavor is sugar-dried sea cucumber.

3, break

When breaking sugar-dried sea cucumber by hand, it is soft because of the high temperature in summer and the sugar inside; in winter, it is hard and brittle.

4, weigh

Put the dried sea cucumber on the hand and weigh it up and down, there is a clear sense of falling.

Salt-dried sea cucumbers are low-cost

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General Dalian people are aware of the processing of dried sea cucumbers, so they don't like to eat dried sea cucumbers. Even if they buy processed sea cucumbers, they only buy salt-dried sea cucumbers because they can be used in dishes with just one boil and one soak after they are bought back.

Nowadays, many restaurants and hotels prefer to purchase this kind of simply processed salt-dried sea cucumber. Since the salt-dried sea cucumber is boiled with live sea cucumbers gutted, then dehydrated and made into a gelatinous skin, we should first look at its dryness and humidity when purchasing it, and the drier the sea cucumber is, the higher the rate of hair growth will be; and vice versa, it will be lower.

And this kind of salt-dried sea cucumber will not deteriorate for one year if it is stored under the environment of -20℃～-5℃.

Lightly dried sea cucumbers are not pretty, but good in quality

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Many of the lightly dried sea cucumbers on the market nowadays are processed with Dalian sea cucumbers. In appearance, some of the lightly dried sea cucumbers are brown in color, some are black and shiny, and some are white and ugly. In fact, the quality of freshly dried sea cucumbers processed with live sea cucumbers does not differ much.

The brown sea cucumber may be the live sea cucumber itself with brown color, or it may be some unethical processors brushed a layer of yellow glue on the surface of the sea cucumber, so the processed sea cucumber has a shiny appearance. People who don't know anything about it usually recognize that kind of sea cucumber with black and shiny color, but in the last two years, chefs in the south are more recognizing the brown sea cucumber.

In fact, the color of dried sea cucumbers is not important, and quality sea cucumbers do not necessarily have a shiny black surface. Some sea cucumbers are white all over and look unsightly, but in fact they are the ones that should sell the most. The light dry sea cucumber because in the production process did not add sugar, so the dry appearance of the color is naturally not good, and the real knowledge of the people, a glance can see that is the good stuff.