I'm the Culinary God-Chapter 809 - 353: The Stewed Catfish Head That Falls Apart at a Touch! Another Day of Being Tricked by the System!
Regarding his junior apprentice brother’s question, Xie Baomin was forthcoming.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zhuang Yizhou asked a few questions whose answers were usually hard to find:
"Chef Xie, when soaking the fish head, can a bamboo mesh be placed underneath?"
"You can, but it’s not recommended because once the fish head is soaked, it becomes very sticky and very soft; using a bamboo mesh can easily break it."
The soaking time for the fish head is quite long.
Taking advantage of this time, Lin Xu sliced the meat from the body of the catfish, making boiled fish slices, dry-fried fish slices, and sweet and sour fish cubes separately.
As for the fish tail and fish bones, he made radish fish tail soup with them.
Tired of always eating tofu soup, today it’s time for a change.
Outside the kitchen, Shen Baobao was looking at the shoes and clothes Chen Yan and the other two had bought, while Shen Guofu was chatting with Old Huang and Cui Qingyuan, who had brought two bottles of the limited edition Guoju 1573.
As for Han Shuzhen, she didn’t even come up, she was downstairs holding Dundun and watching that big catfish.
In the kitchen, Lin Xu finished his own dishes, and the fish head was almost soaked.
Xie Baomin first rotated the wok slightly, allowing the fish head inside to move a bit, then lifted the wok away from the stovetop, and carefully poured the water out.
When only a little water was left, he brought the wok over to a large plate, tilted the wok, and let the fish slowly slide onto the plate.
After draining the excess broth, he began to remove the fish bones.
There are principles for removing bones from a fish head: the inside starts from the bottom up, and the outside starts from the top down.
The inside is the fish meat side, and when removing bones, you start from the body of the fish, and after finishing with the body, move on to the fish head.
"The technique for removing fish bones is very careful, not done blindly. For example, with the body of the fish, you first remove the larger rib bones, and then the spinal bones."
When preparing the fish head for cutting, the bones would be chopped, leaving only a thin layer of skin on the outside connecting them.
At this point, removing bones requires extreme care; otherwise, the fish head would fall apart.
Xie Baomin was very experienced with this dish, quickly removing bone fragments, and would even pre-cut tendons on bones with fascia to prevent connective tissue inside from ruining the presentation.
"Brother, how does this look?"
"Quite stress-relieving."
Xie Baomin: ??????
This is a lesson in culinary technique, why are you treating this like an online stress-relief video?
However, understanding this dish cannot be achieved in just one or two viewings; it requires seeing it live. Nothing can be truly understood until one has deboned thirty or fifty fish heads and explored their internal structure.
As for mastering the essence of deboning, it would likely take eight to ten years.
Lin Xu curiously asked:
"Brother, such a complex dish, how much does one portion sell for?"
"There are cheap ones and expensive ones. At Six Number Building, a portion is several thousand, with reservations required. We only make one or two portions a day, no more. Other Huaiyang restaurants aren’t cheap either. Eating outside, if the price is below a thousand, don’t even try it; the level of disappointment would match your expectations."
A chef who can make Stewed Catfish Head taste good must at least be the head chef or a head cook of a restaurant.
If such a person makes it, can it be sold cheaply?
Soon, the bones inside the fish head were removed, and Xie Baomin took a large plate to cover the fish head, flipped it over with both hands, removed the plate, and the fish head was turned over.
At this moment, the fish head drooped like a deflated balloon, wobbly but intact, without a single blemish.
Once the bones inside were removed, the front needed to be deboned, which means some bones on the surface of the fish head.
Such as the bones near the fish mouth, the orbital bones, the gill covers, etc., all require removal from the front.
Removing bones from the front starts with the fish head.
Xie Baomin inserted his hand into the fish mouth, carefully removing the mouth bones, and then reached in further to remove a piece of skull cap bone behind the fish mouth.
"Removing front bones should be done by gradually extracting from within the fish mouth to keep the fish skin intact."
Xie Baomin was slow in extraction, and if there were places where the fish skin needed to be broken slightly, such as near the gill cover, he would minimize the area and move slowly.
When removing bones from the fish body, Xie Baomin smoothed the pectoral fins on both sides:
"I’ll leave these two, like a pair of little wings, to enhance presentation."
At this point, the entire fish head was fully deboned, appearing as if it had transformed from three dimensions back to two dimensions.
Xie Baomin re-set the wok to start cooking the broth portion.
A small pot of pork bone broth was added to the wok, then scallion and ginger, rice wine, mushroom slices, bamboo shoots, sea scallop, ham slices were all poured into the wok, followed by half a ladle of lard and an equal amount of crab paste.
He turned the heat to high, boiling the pork bone broth.
Once boiled, let it simmer to extract various flavors and incorporate the aroma of crab paste and lard into the broth.
When the broth was nearly ready, he removed the scallion and ginger, and started seasoning.
He added a small spoonful of salt, a small spoonful of sugar, half a spoonful of pepper, and a touch of light soy sauce.
Both sea scallop and ham are salty, so a small spoonful of salt is enough to add base flavor; too much is unnecessary.
After the spices were added, the broth brimming with fragrance now became even more flavorful.
Not only would adding the fish head turn it into a delicious stew, even tossing some noodles in the broth would leave a lasting impression.
He brought the broth back to a boil; Xie Baomin stirred slightly, holding the plate with the fish head, standing next to the wok.
He didn’t immediately add the fish head into the broth, instead ladling some broth onto the plate and shaking it to prevent the gelatin on the fish head from sticking to the plate.
