Xingguo Butterfly Fish

Xingguo Butterfly Fish

　　Butterfly Fish (Butterfly Fish Dumpling): The fish slices are salted and marinated in wine. The filling is made from lean meat, fat, dried shrimp, mushrooms, and wet starch. The potato starch is ground and melted to make a round dumpling wrapper from a single fish slice, which is then stuffed with the filling and shaped like a butterfly. After being blanched in boiling water and cooled in cold water, it is ready to serve. When cooking, use broth and boil vegetables. The fish skin and filling resemble a butterfly. It is quite remarkable that such ordinary ingredients can be turned into an elegant and refined signature dish.

　　Among the “Three Fish Dishes,” the Butterfly Fish is the most charming. It is made by slicing the fish’s back meat, mixing it with potato starch, and pounding it thin with a hammer. Once the water is boiled, the slices are briefly blanched, causing them to fan out like butterfly wings, fluttering up and down in the clear broth. The soup is rich and the meat tender, making it extremely delicious. The two unbroken yet separate wings symbolize inseparable brotherly affection. Legend has it that there once were two young brothers whose parents had passed away. Later, their elder brother, after getting married, wanted to divide the family property. His sister-in-law, being very kind, prepared a dish for the brothers. She sprinkled potato starch on sliced fish back meat and asked the brothers to pound it with a hammer. Thinking they were making a meat patty, they cooked it only to find two connected pieces of meat. The sister-in-law said gently, “Brotherly love is like these fish slices—no matter how much you pound the meat, the sinews remain connected.” Realizing the meaning, the elder brother abandoned the idea of dividing the family. The “Butterfly Fish” thus became a traditional dish of the Hakka people in Xingguo.