When it comes to bringing fish, it seems difficult to relate to seafood.
The seafood in people's minds is generally abalone, sea cucumber, lobster, and even if it is not good, it must be crab, scallops, and pippi shrimp.
And with fish, it is too civilian, just like radishes, potatoes, cabbage, even the farthest Chinese from the sea, probably tasted the taste of fish.
In fact, the striped fish are the most serious deep-sea fish, and the striped fish we eat now cannot be farmed so far.
However, bringing together the "deep sea", "wild", "natural"... How did all the tall and beautiful fish in the advertisement become the most common seafood?
directory
01 | What is Striped Fish?
Striped fish, large yellow croaker, small yellow croaker, squid, Four seas in China
02 | Why are the fish so civilian?
Striped fish, the largest marine fish caught in China
03 | Where is the best fish in China?
Delicious tips with fish, fresh
04 | Most importantly, how to make the best fish to eat?
Delicious ingredients do not require complicated cooking
01What is a striped fish?
In China, striped fish, together with large yellow croaker, small yellow croaker and squid, is called the "four sea products" (the four major marine economic fish).
Photo/pixabay
The distribution of striped fish is also extremely wide, and it can be seen in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.
Although the striped fish produced everywhere look similar, they are not all one species.
There are many species of striped fish, there are a total of 9 genera and 44 species of striped fish in the world, and in the coastal areas of China alone, there are 4 genera of striped fish, such as striped fish, small striped fish, sand belt fish and narrow skull banded fish.
There are 4 kinds of domestic striped fish that are usually eaten by us, such as white-banded fish, short-banded fish, South Sea striped fish under the genus Striped fish, and small striped fish under the genus Small-banded fish.
White-banded fish, also known as striped fish, is also called knifefish or whitefish in some places. It is found off the coast of China, but is mainly concentrated in the East China Sea.
Fresh striped fish have a silvery white surface and a body length of up to two meters. It is recorded in the "Qing Palace Sea Mistake Map" that fishermen in the coastal areas at that time often hung fresh striped fish for sale, which looked like a sword shop from a distance.
But if you look closely at the fish, you will find that it is not kind. With sharp and sharp teeth, the banded fish are carnivorous fish, subsisting on small fish, squid, crustaceans, and even their own kind.
In the "Qing Palace Sea Mistake Map", it was depicted that when fishing with a belt fish, the fish were connected end to end and caught a string of scenes. It is speculated that it is possible that other fish wanted to take the opportunity to bite the companion who had been hooked, but did not admit it, and even themselves were hooked together. There is a proverb in Xiamen that says that white fish is fished with tails.
South Sea striped fish, mainly living in the southern part of the East China Sea and the South China Sea, is relatively large; while short striped fish, mainly living in the waters around Hainan Island, is relatively small, generally about half a meter in length.
Small striped fish, mainly living in the nearshore coast, are distributed along the coast of China, mostly in the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea. The "Bohai knifefish", which is particularly famous along the Bohai Sea coast, belongs to the small striped fish.
Compared with the striped fish, the body length of the small striped fish is shorter, generally no more than 70 cm, the longest is not more than 1 meter; the lateral line of the body of the small striped fish is relatively straight, in the middle part of the body, while the lateral line of the striped fish is located in the middle of the body, near the abdomen; and the small striped fish has no swim bladder, and the striped fish has a swim bladder.
Now in addition to domestic striped fish, there will also be distant-water fishing and imported striped fish, which has also brought some new striped fish species.
Sand striped fish, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait are produced, but more are still distributed in the northern Part of the Indian Ocean and other waters, China's imports from Southeast Asia, including sand striped fish.
West African forktail striped fish, the characteristics are very obvious, the tail is forked, mainly living in the west African sea, and most of the West African forktail fish we eat are caught in the ocean.
02Why are the striped fish so civilian?
As the most popular seafood on the family table, whether it is in the same frame as pork stew noodles, back pot meat, or with hand pilaf and knife cutting noodles, it will not be surprisingly violated.
However, as soon as there is a big scene or a festive feast, the fish are gone.
For example, there should be a fish on the table of the ChineseChinese New Year's Eve meal, which means "more than enough every year". In coastal areas, this fish may be yellow fish, multi-treasure fish, grouper; inland, it may be carp, silver carp, Wuchang fish... No matter where it is, fish is rarely brought to the table as a main dish for Chinese New Year's Eve meals.
This may be because bringing fish cannot be cooked in its entirety, and it is too homely, which is a bit out of line with the grand atmosphere of Chinese New Year's Eve.
Indeed, since ancient times, fish have not been very popular on the table.
Before the Song and Yuan dynasties, there were few records of fish. Until the Ming Dynasty, the naturalist and Fujian xie Zhaochun mentioned the fish in the "Five Miscellaneous Tricks": "Fujian has a long fish, no scales and fishy, the most lowly of the fish, and the guests do not want to climb the tricks." The house of the people, fried in oil, is also very clean. ”
This description of the banded fish is not outdated to this day. The status of the fish is low, and it has never been able to climb the feast, but it has not delayed it from becoming a delicacy of ordinary people.
The "Chronicle of Rizhao County" during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty called the fish "delicious", while the "Zhucheng County Chronicle" of the Qianlong period was recorded as "fresh fat". Until the 1950s, striped fish was an exclusive delicacy for coastal people.
It was not until the 1950s that banded fish began to move inland from the coast. Since then, more and more fishing vessels have been going out to sea to fish, and by the 1960s, the use of sailboats and nylon nets led to a further increase in the catch of striped fish.
After the fish caught are frozen, a considerable part is transported to the mainland, and in addition to selling, a considerable part is distributed to the employees of enterprises and institutions as welfare.
Especially in the northeast, which has a large number of state-owned enterprises, factories send fish, go home to fry fish, stew with fish, almost become a collective memory.
Because the catch of fish with fish has been rising year after year, in 1959, the Shanghai Catering Service Company also edited a "Recipe with Fish", and various chefs gathered and invented 64 dishes with fish, such as fish with fish and crab buckets, toast with fish, eight treasures with fish balls, shrimp with fish, iron row with fish, taiwan drag with fish, with fish with vegetable hearts, clams with fish breasts, stir-fried with fish fillets, etc., are some time-consuming and laborious banquet dishes. The Shanghai Restaurant Association has also tried to hold a banquet with fish.
However, in the 1980s and 1990s, due to overfishing, the catch of the four seas fell sharply, and the small yellow croaker and squid could no longer form a fishing flood, and the resources of the yellow croaker were almost exhausted. Today, news of wild yellow croaker is generally accompanied by sky-high prices.
Only striped fish, after experiencing a sluggish production in the 1980s, has continued to rise since the early 1990s. In recent years, it has maintained an annual production of about 1.1 million tonnes, accounting for 80% of the world's striped fish production.
You know, in 2019, China's mutton production was only 4.88 million tons, and the production of striped fish was close to 1/4 of the mutton production, and it was such a large amount that could keep the striped fish the true color of grassroots civilians.
03When is the best fish in China?
China's coastal areas have produced striped fish, but the most famous is also the striped fish produced in the East China Sea, especially the Zhoushan striped fish.
Zhoushan Striped Fish is the first batch of seafood geographical indication certification trademark seafood in China. After entering the winter, the cold air goes south, and the fish migrate from north to south for the winter, and the sea where the Zhoushan fishery is located is the confluence of cold and warm water, and the fish stay here to form a fishing flood.
The winter solstice to the second year of the year is the most delicious season for bringing fish, especially around the winter solstice, and the fattest. At this time, the fish is rich in oil, the taste is delicate, the fish body is thicker, but it is not wide, so in some areas of Zhejiang, there will be a winter solstice to eat the habit of taking fish.
In the market in Beijing and other places, the price of striped fish from the East China Sea will indeed be higher.
But if you ask people living in coastal cities where the best fish are, they will answer that the local ones are the best.
Dalian people only recognize "Bohai knife" (although it has been extremely rare in recent years), Qingdao people like local knife fish, Xiamen people think that Hong Kong "white fish" is the best...
Nor is this entirely the result of a regional mentality.
In the impression of many people, the fish is either wrapped in a thick layer of ice, or a fishy lump, silver-white fish scales will touch a hand, in Beijing and other places there is also the name of "stinky fish".
In fact, the fresh fishy smell is not obvious. After the death of the striped fish, over time, the oxidative trimethylamine in the body is gradually decomposed into trimethylamine by bacteria, which is the main source of the fishy smell. If the chilled conditions are not good, the fishy smell will be more pronounced.
In addition, the hydroxyl compound content of frozen striped fish will be higher than that of fresh striped fish, and it will also produce a fishy taste. If repeated freeze-thawing occurs during transport and storage, the flavor of the fish will further decrease. The price of chilled striped fish on the market is almost double the price of frozen fish.
Therefore, people in coastal areas can eat locally produced, fresher striped fish, and it is not unreasonable to think that the local is delicious.
There will be a layer of "silver powder" on the surface of fresh fish, and I have encountered a fishmonger who has taken the initiative to ask, do you want to help scrape it off? At this time, you must stop him.
This layer of "silver powder" is actually a layer of skin formed by special fat, called "silver fat", which is a kind of grease fat, which can not be scraped off, but should also be retained as much as possible. If this layer of "silver powder" is easily wiped off. It also proves that the fish is not too fresh.
In the market, even fresh striped fish are difficult to see alive. This is because when fishing for the striped fish, the striped fish are pulled from the deep sea to the surface, and the drastic changes in water pressure cause the organs of the striped fish to rupture and bleed to death.
But the belt fish does not stay in the deep sea all the time, it will float up to the surface waters to feed at night or on cloudy days, then you can catch live striped fish, but the storage and transportation of live striped fish is quite laborious and completely unnecessary.
Since you can't catch live striped fish, what about farming live striped fish? As mentioned above, the striped fish is still the highest yield among china's fish fish, the yield is relatively stable, there is no need to breed; in addition, the striped fish habits are fierce, need to migrate, the habitat environment is special, the relevant research still needs to be deepened, and now it is impossible to successfully breed the striped fish.
04The most critical thing is how to make the best fish to eat?
Like most marine fish, when you encounter fresh striped fish, the most suitable thing is to steam it. Fresh striped fish is spread with green onion and ginger, steamed with rice wine, and then ordered with a little cooked lard before serving, which is rich in taste.
However, for frozen strip fish or frozen strip fish segments, it is still more suitable for braising, dry frying, and frying.
The striped fish in the Chaoshan region are the fattest in the first month. Cut the relatively wide striped fish into sections, marinate for a period of time, fry and set aside, and then simmer with the garlic until the juice is collected, this dish of braised garlic with fish is one of the most homely dishes in Chaoshan Province.
The thinner fish can be cut into sections and directly into the pot, seasoned with Puning bean paste, and sprinkled with parsley before leaving the pot, the taste is very delicious.
Dried fried striped fish dipped in a little vinegar, grilled radish shredded with fish, sweet and sour striped fish are all favorites of Shanghainese. Even if few people want it, a finger-wide small strip of fish, Shanghainese can turn decay into magic, stir-fry it slowly and make fish pine.
In the summer, Shanghainese people like to eat bad dishes – soaking and brineing the ingredients with bad brine. The fish is fried and then soaked in a bad brine, and the slightly sweet taste is full of fresh flavor.
When you arrive in Beijing, many restaurants with the flavor of old Beijing have a "traditional Beijing dish" - flapjack roll with fish. After the fish is fried, it is put into a pressure cooker with spices and spices, and after a period of time, even the fish bones become crispy, and there is no need to worry about being pricked.
Of course, this dish is said to be old Beijing, but it is actually far less old. In the traditional cross-talk that best reflects the style of Beiping in the Republic of China, yellow fish, conch fish, anchovies, carp have been mentioned... There is no mention of fish; some have examined six or seven Beijing recipes from the 1950s to the 1990s, and only one recipe compiled in the early 1990s mentions dishes with fish.
Moreover, China's first domestic pressure cooker was born in 1964, and it was even later to enter the homes of ordinary people. Therefore, "pancake roll with fish" is really a very young "traditional Beijing dish".
In various coastal areas, the uneaten striped fish will also be salted to make salted striped fish for preservation, or the striped fish will be salted first, and then dried or dried to make dried with fish, and when eaten, it can be steamed on the pot.
In Japan, the idea of eating striped fish is completely different from China.
The fish will be made into sashimi or sushi, or grilled and eaten, and it is a good practice to grill the fish with salt, fish with the fish, and nishikyo with fish.
Thank you for your interest
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