Rotten salmon is also called smelly mandarin fish. It is a famous traditional dish of the Han nationality in Huizhou, Anhui Province, and one of the representatives of Huizhou cuisine, which is popular in six counties of Huizhou. People who meet for the first time are afraid to eat chopsticks, because the smelly smell of mandarin fish makes people a little worried. In fact, you don't have to worry about it at all. This is by no means an off-flavor of the dish. This is the unique flavor of this dish. When you take a bite, you will be surprised to find that its taste is so delicious. This is rotten salmon, a famous dish in Huizhou.

In the early years, Huizhou merchants traveled far and wide, and fished for food. After a long time, the stored mandarin fish was prone to odor, so they wiped it with salt and tossed it over and over again. Thousands of miles away, the fish still did not change color, but the shape was right and the taste was strong, and the oil was fried, and the special fragrance (it should be said that it was smelly) was fragrant. Later generations carried forward the wisdom of workers and refined the pickling method of stinky fish to form a routine. First, the mandarin fish was soaked in fine salt for six days, and the proportion should be just right, otherwise the taste would be biased. After the well-made osmanthus fish comes out of the tank, the gills are still red, the scales are not peeled off, and the quality has not changed, but the skin exudes a special smell that looks like smelly but not smelly. However, after washing, it is slightly fried in hot oil and cooked with low fire, which is not only odorless, but extremely delicious. This dish has become a model of Huizhou cuisine. It is said that if you don't eat osmanthus fish, you don't eat Huizhou cuisine.