Master chefs create dishes with rare fish
Print Edition
Four-gilled perch, the near-extinct freshwater fish indigenous to Songjiang, is returning to the dining table. Local chefs have found different ways to turn the fish into gourmet dishes and the most popular is braising it with steamed eggs in soy sauce.
Recently, three chefs from the Shanghai’s time-honored restaurants were invited by the Songjiang Culinary Association and Songjiang Tourism Bureau to invent new dishes with four-gilled perch, once a tribute to the imperial court.
The fish was also served in the state banquet in honor of visiting US president Richard Nixon in 1972.
Though famous for its tasty meat and lack of small bones, the fish is not easy to cook. The secret recipe of Perch Cooked with Eight Treasures has long been lost. “We need to promote commercial breeding of the four-gilled perch and develop new recipes for cooking the fish,” said Gao Guoxiang, director of the Songjiang Tourism Bureau.
The three chefs, Wang Chengyue, Shen Yiming and Shu Huade, are master chefs with national certificates.
They observed live perch in a pond, talked with fish farmers, and then went to the kitchen to invent new dishes.
Chef Wang pickled three perch and simmered them until the soup thickens. He then added bamboo shoots, pickled cabbage, chili, rice wine and other ingredients to stew the fish.
Chef Shu first steamed the perch with fermented soy beans, then made a soup with carrots, celeries, green chili, onions, lemons and potatoes, enriching it with soy sauce, sugar, rice wine, salt and Thai fish sauce.
After rendering it into thick soup, he added garlic, fried ginger slices and more fermented soy beans. Finally, he poured the soup on the steamed fish.
“The fish needs careful handling because it has no scales and high temperature can damage its skin,” Shu said.
Chef Shen steamed the perch and eggs together, then put deboned fish neatly on egg custard, and added fried scallops to enhance its flavor.
“The tricky part of cooking this dish is to control the use of salt.
The fish contains rich collagen protein which is very valuable,” he said.
The three chefs created six recipes for cooking four-gilled perch, which will soon appear on the menus of Songjiang’s 12 star-rated hotels.
“Next, we will let more people know the fish and taste the fish. No matter where it goes, four-gilled perch is the icon of Songjiang,” sai Gao, the tourism official.
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