After explaining to the audience how to make morel mushrooms stuffed with shrimp paste, the final dish was brought over by the young lady in the qipao.
Steamed Deboned Yellow Croaker in a Golden Sauce
Before Li Xiao lay a fresh yellow croaker, about 20 centimeters long and three fingers wide, its form perfectly intact.
The fish’s body was a brilliant gold, creating a stark, beautiful contrast against the snow-white plate.
Li Xiao leaned in closer, and a fresh, sweet aroma hit his nose. But he quickly noticed that besides the savory fragrance of the fish, there was also a distinct smell of turmeric.
He dipped his chopsticks into the sauce for a taste. A complex flavor, spicy yet sweet, spread across his tongue.
He understood at once. The sauce on the plate owed its golden color to the addition of turmeric powder.
Turmeric powder, a spice with medicinal properties, not only provides a vibrant color but also helps to remove fishiness and enhance aroma.
He realized the chef’s main purpose for using turmeric was to complement the natural golden hue of the yellow croaker, making the dish’s overall color more appealing.
However, the amount of turmeric used this time was a bit excessive, causing its flavor to become too prominent.
Soon, Li Xiao noticed something unusual about the fish’s belly.
He gently poked it, feeling its firm texture.
Even after being deboned, the yellow croaker’s belly hadn’t collapsed from the removal of its bones and organs.
He carefully lifted a small piece of the belly meat and, upon closer inspection, discovered the chef’s clever trick.
To maintain the deboned yellow croaker’s shape, the chef had ingeniously stuffed the cavity with the heart of a baby napa cabbage.
This method not only preserved the fish’s aesthetic appeal but also added a layer of creativity and texture to the dish.
Li Xiao turned to the camera and said with admiration:
"This is a truly exquisite technique.
Small yellow croakers, due to their size, can’t rely on thick flesh to hold their shape.
Stuffing the belly with baby cabbage not only maintains the fish’s integrity but also adds a touch of culinary ingenuity."
Such creativity and meticulous preparation made this dish admirable not just for its taste, but for its presentation and originality.
「In the live stream chatroom」
"Am I seeing things?? Why is there a baby cabbage inside that fish??"
"How on earth did they do that? How did they stuff such a big baby cabbage inside?"
"All I know about is that pear-in-the-bottle liqueur, where they put a glass bottle over a pear when it’s still small. When the pear grows, it ends up perfectly inside the bottle. But how a baby cabbage ended up in a fish’s belly, I really can’t figure it out!"
··········
Seeing that many people in the chat were curious about how a baby cabbage was stuffed into such a small yellow croaker, Li Xiao began to explain:
"If you were paying attention in class, you might have noticed that the young lady who served the dish called it a deboned yellow croaker."
"That means the bones and organs of this fish were removed before it was cooked."
Hearing his explanation, even more confused voices popped up in the stream.
"Wait!! Are you sure about that, streamer? This fish doesn’t look like it’s been cut open at all. How could they remove the bones and organs?"
"I know! The side facing the customer wasn’t cut, but the side facing the plate must have been sliced open! That’s how they took out the bones and organs and put the baby cabbage in!!"
"What the guy above said is highly possible!"
·····
Seeing his viewers’ theories, Li Xiao shook his head.
He gently reached out with his chopsticks and flipped the yellow croaker over. Seeing the equally intact other side, the crowd was instantly dumbfounded.
"How can that be?"
"Both sides are perfectly intact. How in the world did they get the bones and organs out?"
······
Li Xiao didn’t keep them in suspense and revealed the secret directly.
"The work of deboning a fish is incredibly tedious. Even with dedicated practice, it takes a chef at least a year or two to be able to completely remove all the bones and organs from a fish while keeping it whole.
Moreover, this deboning method doesn’t work for all types of fish. It’s only suitable for fish like the small or large yellow croakers we see here, because they don’t have other fine bones—just one large spine and some large rib bones.
To keep the fish’s body intact, the only way to remove the bones and organs is through the gill opening.
First, the gills are removed. Then, a special pointed chopstick is used. One side of this chopstick’s tip is bladed, while the other is not much different from a regular chopstick.
Using the bladed side, you slowly sever the connection between the spine and the fish meat. Then, the blade moves down along the spine, following the curve of the fish’s skeleton to separate the rib bones as well. The chopstick is then twisted with a skillful flick.
This step is the most critical. One slip and a rib bone could pierce the flesh, which would be very difficult to remove and could even ruin the integrity of the whole fish. If that happens, the deboning process is a complete failure.
When done correctly, as the entire spine is pulled out through the gills, the rib bones will still be attached to it. Although dislocated, they won’t have broken off the spine.
After removing the entire spine and the attached rib bones, taking out the organs becomes much simpler.
Using a regular chopstick, insert it through the gill opening and rotate it clockwise or counterclockwise. The organs will get tangled into a ball. As you withdraw the chopstick, the balled-up organs are pulled out through the gill opening as well.
Finally, you just need to rinse the fish’s cavity clean with water."
The crowd had never imagined that you could pull the bones and organs out through the Fish’s Mouth, and they were all absolutely amazed.
After explaining the fish’s preparation method, Li Xiao didn’t wait any longer.
Since the small yellow croaker wasn’t very large, what was tucked inside its belly was just the innermost heart of the baby cabbage.
Li Xiao didn’t eat the fish first. Instead, he used his chopsticks to pull out the baby cabbage, which had been steamed tender inside the fish.
He knew very well just how delicious food could be when it had absorbed the original, concentrated juices of other ingredients.
The baby cabbage had turned almost translucent, and just bringing it closer revealed a rich, fishy aroma.
If he ignored its vegetable shape, Li Xiao might have mistaken it for a piece of fish meat.
Dipping the translucent baby cabbage into the rich, golden sauce, Li Xiao noted its small portion. He blew on the steaming morsel a few times before popping the entire cabbage heart into his mouth.
’The golden sauce has a strong chicken flavor, which makes sense since it takes a whole chicken to stew down a broth this rich. The turmeric flavor is intense, though... maybe a little too intense?’
Li Xiao’s brow furrowed slightly. The turmeric was even overpowering the natural flavor of the chicken broth; it was a case of the guest upstaging the host.
The baby cabbage itself was very sweet from having absorbed the juices of the small yellow croaker, and it was packed with savory flavor. Overall, it was decent enough.
He picked up a piece of fish meat. The flesh of the small yellow croaker was extremely delicate, with a faint fragrance of Huadiao wine. It was refreshing and tasted quite good.
The only shortcoming was the excessive turmeric powder. Although it made the golden sauce look rich, thick, and beautiful, it came at a cost.
Besides providing a nice color, turmeric powder also serves to enhance aroma and mask fishiness.
But the strong ginger-like flavor suppressed the savory taste of the chicken broth and the sweetness of the fish. It seemed the trade-off wasn’t worth it.
After all, he could tell that this restaurant used excellent ingredients. Food this fresh would hardly have any strong fishy smell to begin with.
There was no need for such a heavy ginger flavor to cover anything up; a little Huadiao wine would have been more than enough.
As he swallowed the baby cabbage, the system’s notification chimed in his mind.
[Congratulations, you have lit up the 29th item in your collection.]
[The culinary item you have lit up is: Steamed Deboned Yellow Croaker in a Golden Sauce]
[Dish Rating: 89 [Good]]
[As the dish rating is ’Good,’ your reward is tripled.]
[Congratulations, you have received a special reward: Your success rate when sea fishing has increased by 10%.]
[Congratulations, you have received an experience reward: Fish Deboning Insights]
[Congratulations, you have received an experience reward: Yellow Croaker Selection Insights]
·······
After swallowing the baby cabbage, Li Xiao picked up another small piece of fish and put it in his mouth.
Just as he thought, the flavor of the fish meat couldn’t compare to the baby cabbage, which had absorbed all the essence.
As he ate the yellow croaker, Li Xiao began his critique of the dish:
"The small yellow croaker was deboned very cleanly, without causing much damage to the meat. The chicken broth is fragrant, the croaker is sweet, and the baby cabbage is sweet with a hint of fish aroma. All of that is quite good."
"But..."
Hearing Li Xiao say "but," Zhao Long, who was watching intently from the back kitchen, immediately perked up, paying full attention.
"But, it’s the addition of the turmeric powder that I don’t quite understand. The golden color is indeed nice, but the strong ginger-like flavor feels a bit like gilding the lily."
"If the original umami of this steamed fish was a 10 out of 10, then after adding the turmeric powder, its umami is now only an 8."
After hearing Li Xiao’s words, Zhao Long felt a little unconvinced this time.
In his view, Li Xiao’s previous critiques of his dishes had been quite reasonable.
But this time, he couldn’t bring himself to agree with his evaluation of the yellow croaker.
The reason he used turmeric powder was to account for the fishy smell. He knew that a customer might not eat the entire fish at once.
That’s why he added turmeric powder to the golden sauce. There were other edible colorings that could make the sauce yellow, but after careful consideration, he decided to use it.
In fact, when adding the turmeric, he had already considered that the ginger-like flavor might mask the ingredients’ natural umami, but he felt he had no other choice.
[Thanks to all my awesome supporters for the monthly tickets and recommendation votes! Thank you!]
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