When Qingdao people make braised Spanish mackerel, they must peel off the fish skin; If you chop stuffing to make jiaozi, you should remove all the red meat near the skin. "Fish skin smells fishy and can't be eaten," said Jiaodong people.
There is also the local custom of making drums with fish skin, which has been regarded as characteristic folk music and intangible cultural heritage. A few years ago, I also read a news article entitled "Fish skin turns waste into treasure" in a newspaper in Shandong, to the effect that a boss invested in building a factory, collected the fish skin that should have been discarded, and extracted fish skin glue to make cosmetics and health care products. "Our province has always been at the forefront in enhancing the added value of products and cultivating new kinetic energy of the marine economy through scientific and technological innovation." That's what the press release says.
I think, if Guangdong people in Fujian saw this news, they would faint immediately.
Lingnan people are good at eating fish skin and know how to deal with it. A long time ago, they applied the principle of "drying in the sun to make incense" to many sea mistakes such as scallops, oysters, clams and swim bladders. Fish skin is no exception.
The material for making dried fish skin is usually shark or ray, because it is relatively thick and cheap. The skins of sturgeon, bighead carp and large yellow croaker are ok, but they are expensive and the taste is not necessarily much higher. Of course, local tyrants are free.
I once saw a fishmonger skinning sharks in the fish market at Hongshan Wharf in Raoping, Guangdong. This process is very special. Without laparotomy, a small incision is made directly, the thumb is embedded, and the whole cortex is separated from the fish. The fishmonger said that the purpose of not having caesarean section is to increase the elasticity of fish skin and make it taste better. If the strength is right, the fish skin can be sold at a high price without breaking, which requires years of practice.
Fresh fish skin should be exposed to the scorching sun until stiff, and it is good to have a metallic sound of "clanking" fingers. This kind of fish skin can be preserved for a long time, and its umami substance amino acid can be slowly matured and released during the preservation process. Using water to make hair when eating has faded the fishy smell when fresh, but retained the taste of flexible teeth. Just like a young woman in her thirties, she has lost her youth, but still has a young and beautiful face.
Shark skin can be divided into white skin, green skin and fish lips according to its position. White skin is abdominal skin, named for its white color. This kind of fish skin is the thinnest, easy to taste and most suitable for stir-frying. The onion-flavored fish skin in Guangzhou restaurant is made by frying onion, star anise and garlic, frying the white skin into diamond-shaped pieces, and finally seasoning with soy sauce. This dish is very strong and sharp, and it tastes the best.
Green husk is the back husk, and the color is blue and black. This kind of skin is thick, chewy and suitable for cold salad. Cold fish skin, a famous snack in Chen Tianji's shop in Xiguan, Guangzhou, is made of small and wide strips of green skin with peanuts, sesame seeds, coriander, minced garlic and balsamic vinegar. Cai Lan praised it, saying it was better than snakeskin. This gourmet who grew up in the Cantonese cuisine system is really knowledgeable.
Fish lips are the thickest skin on the head and mouth. Fujian people who are good at cooking big dishes prefer cooking to Cantonese people. In the old-fashioned Juchun Garden in Fuzhou, in addition to cold salad, the most common fish lip practice is to join the Buddha jumping wall. After a long period of stewing, the fish lips become soft and sticky, and the Buddha jumping wall is thick enough to hang soup on the bowl wall, which is also its masterpiece.
In fact, in addition to the thick skin of marine fish, the skin of freshwater fish is also wonderful. The fried eel skin of Guangzhou White Swan is typical. Fried with white eel skin, the heat is properly controlled and crisp. You can also order eel soup to eat, and the soft fried eel skin slightly stained with soup has a subtle taste, which is a beauty that words can't directly describe.
I also ate snakehead skin and braised eel in Xiamen. The skin of snakehead is very thin, and there is no sense of existence at first, but the temperature in the casserole has reached, and a large amount of skin glue oozes out, wrapped in soft glutinous eel meat, which is really a tender and lingering wonder.
Fried shad in Shunde may be the pinnacle of freshwater fish skin. The whole shad is skinned and fleshed, but the skin cannot be broken. After the fish is boned, add dried tangerine peel, water chestnut and mushrooms, chop them into small pieces, and then brew them back into the skin, which looks like a complete fish. This kind of fish is fried first, then clear soup, and finally mixed with water. The fish skin is crisp and thick, and there are no fishbones. It's a high-end lazy dish.
I don't think any kind of food can show different tastes of crisp, elastic and waxy in different cooking methods like fish skin.
One detail that most people don't know is that there is really fish skin in fish skin peanuts. This small snack, which was born in Japan, is a crispy skin made of fish skin glue and starch, wrapped around peanuts and fried. If you eat it carefully, it has both the umami flavor of fish and the crispness after starch frying. Unfortunately, most manufacturers in Chinese mainland and Taiwan Province Province only named their fish skins and peanuts, ignoring unnecessary fish skins. The appearance similarity is high, but the taste is poor after all.
It's like a boyfriend and girlfriend dating, watching movies, pushing the road and eating steak on weekends, and having a good chat all the way. But in the end, when the boys send the girls downstairs, the date is always incomplete if they don't steal a kiss in a dark corner.
The old man Tang Zhi said: "Drinking wine that can't quench your thirst and eating snacks that are not enough are all necessary for life." Fish skin, which is neither full nor overbearing, plays this seemingly indispensable role.
Products | food
Author | Wei (qyqy 1 18)