CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to Make a Puffer Fish

Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty said: "If puffer fish is properly prepared, it will benefit people; if it is improperly prepared, it will kill people." Therefore, when processing and dissecting puffer fish, the poisonous parts must be removed, and special people, special places, special tools, professional dissection and cooking are required to ensure safety.

1. Use running water to remove dirt and mucus from the puffer fish's body, and check and remove the green, translucent or dark brown spotted parasites attached to the inner side of the pectoral fins.

2. Cut off the dorsal fin, pectoral fin and arm fin.

3. Use scissors to gently open the abdominal skin from the anus to the head (do not touch the internal organs), then pull the skin apart.

4. Cut open the abdominal cavity from the anus to the mouth (without damaging the internal organs), pull them apart, and separate the liver, ovaries, fish roe, intestines, stomach, mucinous nests, and milt. Remove the blood clots from the spleen at the cervical joint. Store the four parts in different containers and do not mix them.

5. Cut off the neck and tail bones, dig out the eyes and gills, remove the blood and rinse. Rinse the skin with hot water.

6. Remove the blood vessels and membranes from the liver, ovary or mucosa, and destroy the rest in a safe manner. The ovary should be dried and used separately.

7. After the primary processing is completed, the pufferfish must be strictly inspected by a professional pufferfish cooking master before cooking. Special attention: Do not do other work during the primary processing to prevent cross contamination. After completion, the rag, scissors, utensils, hands, and the ground should be cleaned and disinfected in time, and the sewage should be flushed into the sewer, not overflowing everywhere, to ensure safety and hygiene.

Distribution characteristics of pufferfish toxicity

1. The ovaries and liver are the most toxic, followed by the contents of blood sausage and skin, while muscles and testes are mostly weakly toxic or non-toxic.

2. Toxicity varies with season and age. The same puffer fish is most toxic during the spawning period. If abnormalities are found during dissection, such as eggs that cannot be separated, eggs wrapped in glue, incomplete glue, asymmetrical or scattered eggs, the whole fish should be removed in time and destroyed together with the rest of the waste.

The names of the puffer fish that are currently more commonly used and safe

1. Chrysanthemum yellow Oriental pig: price 280 yuan/jin

2. Red-finned Oriental dolphin:

3. Yellowfin dolphin:

4. Dark-striped Oriental pufferfish: Price: 75 yuan/catties [Cultivated Poison-Controlled Pufferfish]

5. Oriental dolphin with horizontal stripes: price 250 yuan/jin

6. Dark-striped Yangtze River dolphin: price 1,500 yuan/catties (must be booked in advance)

Pufferfish with abalone sauce

Ingredients: One Yangtze River pufferfish, about 500 grams,

Seasoning: 50g peanut oil, 10g Jiuzhuang oyster sauce, 20g abalone sauce, 10g special sauce, 250g beer, ginger, onion, garlic, 2g salt, chicken rice dark soy sauce, 5g chicken powder,

Production:

1. Pufferfish dissection and processing are as described above.

2. Heat the pan, add peanut oil, onion, garlic, and the cleaned liver until it smells good.

3. Add the rinsed puffer fish, beer, 250 grams of broth, "soup made from old chicken, ham and pork ribs", and abalone juice. Bring to a boil over high heat for about 5 minutes, then simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes. Then add puffer fish skin and ginger (not added before) and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and serve.

4. In another pot, take the original soup of puffer fish, add oyster sauce, salt, special sauce, chicken rice soy sauce, and chicken powder for seasoning, collect the sauce and pour it on the puffer fish and puffer fish skin.

Features: bright colors and rich nutrition.

Key: material selection, heat, time

〈Why can’t ginger be added too early? If ginger is added too early, the protein in the fish extract will affect the ginger, making it unable to play the role of removing the fishy smell. The fish extract is slightly acidic, and adding ginger will have the best effect of removing the fishy smell and increasing the freshness. Therefore, when cooking fish, ginger should be added after the protein in the fish has solidified.〉

Braised puffer fish

Ingredients: 2 Yangtze River pufferfish, about 1000 grams, 8 choy sum

Seasoning: 50 grams of lard, 20 grams of special puffer fish sauce, 500 grams of beer, ginger, onion, garlic, 250 grams of fresh soup, 5 grams of rice vinegar, and 5 grams of salt.

Production:

1. Dissect and process pufferfish in the same manner as above.

2. Heat the pan and add lard, onion, garlic and liver until fragrant.

3. Add the puffer fish and fry until the fish meat turns white. (Frying until the fish meat turns white is to make the puffer fish soup thicker and more shiny.)

4. Then add beer, special braised puffer fish sauce, rice vinegar, fresh soup, salt, and simmer over high heat for about 10 minutes. Add ginger and simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Then add puffer fish skin and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes to reduce the sauce. Remove from heat and serve on a plate. Boil the choy sum with oil and salt water until dry, and use it to garnish the puffer fish.

Features: bright red color, rich aroma, typical local characteristics.

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Qianminqin’s special sauce is made from rock sugar, rice wine, honey, seafood sauce, abalone sauce, oyster sauce, MSG, peanut butter, etc.

The original puffer fish juice can also be used to mix rice, noodles, and various seasonal vegetables.

key:

The selection and processing of pufferfish, cooking temperature, and special sauce. (Wild and farmed pufferfish have different cooking temperatures, but the dissection and processing procedures for farmed pufferfish should be the same as those for wild pufferfish, because you can never leave anything to chance when cooking pufferfish.)

Pufferfish in milk soup

Ingredients: 2 Yangtze River pufferfish

Seasoning: 20g lard, 5g salt, 800g broth, 10g MSG, onion, ginger, garlic, 100g beer

Production:

1. Dissect and process pufferfish as above.

2. Heat the pan, add lard, onion and garlic, sauté until fragrant, then add the puffer fish and fry until both sides turn white.

3. Add broth and beer, cook over high heat for 15 minutes. When the soup turns white, add ginger and puffer fish skin, then cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. Add salt and MSG to taste.

Features: As white as milk, the soup is thick and sticky, with a delicious aftertaste.

Steamed Pufferfish with Fresh Peppers

Ingredients: 2 Yangtze River pufferfish, about 1000 grams, 100 grams of bright red pepper.

Seasoning: 20g lard, 20g spicy oil, 10g salt, 100g fresh soup, ginger, onion, garlic, 20g MSG. 20g rice wine,

Production:

1. Dissect and process pufferfish in the same manner as above.

2. Marinate the puffer fish with salt, onion, ginger and rice wine for 10 minutes

3. Cut the bright red pepper into inch-long pieces and sauté them with spicy oil.

4. Place the marinated puffer fish on a plate, add lard, red pepper segments fried in spicy oil, fresh soup, garlic and MSG and pour them on the puffer fish plate. Steam it for 30 minutes, then pick out the onions, ginger and garlic when it is out of the steamer.

Features: slightly spicy and fragrant, with a tender and smooth taste.

Pufferfish head in soup

Ingredients: 500g clean puffer fish meat, 10 choy sum, 50g crab roe.

Seasoning: 15g salt, 20g MSG, 5g beer, 600g fresh milk, onion and ginger juice, 3g pepper,

Production:

1. Cut the puffer fish meat into rice-sized pieces, add fresh milk, onion, ginger juice, salt, MSG, pepper and beer and stir well.

2. Make the chewy stuffing into ping-pong-sized balls and garnish with crab roe.

3. Take 10 stewing pots, add the seasoned soup respectively, put a puffer fish meatball in each pot, cover and stew for two hours, add boiled Chinese cabbage to garnish after taking out of the pot.

Features: smooth and refreshing, the soup is clear and mellow, and the nutritional combination is reasonable.

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Adding puffer fish meat to the juice made with fresh milk, green onion and ginger allows the fish balls to better absorb the nutrients of the soup and have a rich milky taste.

Iced puffer fish

Ingredients: 2 puffer fish, 500 grams of ice water,

Seasoning: a Japanese mustard, 10 grams of red Zhejiang vinegar, 10 grams of Japanese soy sauce, 10 grams of seafood soy sauce,

Production:

1. Cut the pufferfish, remove the bones, and rinse with running water for 20 minutes.

2. Slice the puffer fish meat and place it in ice water for 5 minutes

3. Arrange the fish fillets in the ice water on a pre-chilled plate and add four seasonings.

Features: The fish fillet is bright and tender.

Pufferfish is highly poisonous. Some sources say that its toxicity is more than a thousand times higher than that of cyanide. When I was young, I had contact with fishermen on the coast, so I have some knowledge of how to cook pufferfish. It is mainly about how to process fish. To be a pufferfish chef in Japan, you need to go through two years of special training and pass the exam before you can take up the job. It is said that the tools they use to process pufferfish are more numerous and more delicate than surgical instruments. I have eaten pufferfish hundreds of times in the past few decades. Pufferfish is very difficult to buy now, and it is all traded secretly. The precautions are mainly about material selection and processing; pufferfish must be fresh. The pufferfish toxin is mainly the internal organs, blood, fish skin, and fish head. I remove all of them when processing pufferfish. Since it is highly toxic and you want to eat delicious food, don't be reluctant to waste more. For safety reasons, fish bones are also removed. The pufferfish I processed is basically four pieces of white meat. The pure fish meat is cut into thin slices, soaked in clean water, and changed twice before it can be eaten as it is. There are many specific methods. I feel that some of the seasonings and dipping sauces are not advisable, which loses the original meaning of eating pufferfish. Generally, Sichuan fish slices are boiled in clear water and fish slices are added. When they are cooked, add chopped coriander or chopped green onions, sesame oil, and a little salt. It is very fresh. You can also make dumplings. The process is the same as making fish dumplings. Avoid the so-called flavoring condiments including soy sauce and MSG, and keep the original flavor. I ate pufferfish again during the Spring Festival this year. Three fish weighed a total of 5.6 jin. After processing, the fish meat weighed about 1.5 jin. It was really delicious! "After eating a bite of pufferfish meat, you will never want to eat fish in the world again."

It is recommended not to eat puffer fish privately. It is safer to go to some time-honored restaurants. Yangzhong cooks more than 100 tons of puffer fish every year.

Of course, there is curiosity involved, but it is not ordinary to try it, because if the puffer fish is refined by a famous chef, the taste is indeed delicious and nutritious, but it depends on the level of refinement of the professional chef.

My experience in cooking puffer fish over the past few years is as follows:

(1) First of all, the best puffer fish to eat are those farmed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. They are not only less toxic, but also plump. And they must be alive. Dead puffer fish are not only difficult to handle, but also toxic. The toxins in puffer fish are mainly in the eyes, blood, ovaries, liver and other parts. The meat of the fish is not toxic, but the meat is contaminated and the taste is changed when the fish is dead.

(2) The most important thing is to kill the fish. First, put a basin of clean water in it and keep running water from the tap. Put the puffer fish on a plate and use scissors to cut out the fish eyes first, then cut off the fish fins on both sides. Then use scissors to cut open the fish belly (while doing this, the fish blood keeps flowing and the tap water keeps running) and scrape the fish's internal organs clean. There is a horizontal bone near the fish tail that needs to be cut off. Then turn the fish skin over the fish back, remove the fish skin and fat, drain the blood and water, and reveal the snow-white fish body. Soak the finished puffer fish in clean water for more than 20 minutes (keep running tap water) to complete the first step. The liver of the puffer fish can also be eaten, but it needs to be soaked in water (keep running tap water) for more than three hours to rinse out the puffer fish toxin before it can be eaten. It smells a bit muddy. It can also be fried with eggs.

(3) Cooking (pufferfish sashimi, braised pufferfish with abalone sauce, pufferfish with white sauce)

Here are some of the most popular chefs' recipes for white sauce pufferfish:

Put ginger and scallion in a pot, add a little Venus brand rose wine, then add the broth made from lean meat and old chicken and bring to a boil. Pour into a casserole and turn to low heat. Add the processed puffer fish and simmer for about half an hour. Then reduce the sauce until it has a little gelatinous texture and season. The meat is smooth and the soup is thick and white, which can rival the best thick soup of shark fin.