Crystal Salmon

Crystal Salmon

　　Ingredients for Crystal Salmon:

Main: 1000g salmon, 1500g pork skin

Accessories: 10g fresh shiitake mushrooms, 5g soaked black fungus, 20g spinach, 20g winter bamboo shoots

Seasonings: 2g monosodium glutamate, 10g ginger, 10g scallions, 7g salt, 15g cooking wine, 3g Sichuan peppercorns

Features of Crystal Salmon:

It has an attractive appearance, is crystal clear, and tastes refreshing and smooth—making it a great dish to enjoy with drinks.

How to Make Crystal Salmon:

1. Debone and peel the salmon, then slice it into small oblique pieces and place in a bowl.

2. Add salt, cooking wine, and a little clear soup to the fish slices, steam for 5 minutes until just cooked, then remove and set aside.

3. Remove stems from shiitake mushrooms and wash them.

4. Remove stems from black fungus and wash it.

5. Wash and clean the spinach.

6. Peel and wash the winter bamboo shoots.

7. Wash the ginger and scallions.

8. Briefly blanch the pork skin in boiling water, then remove, scrape off any dirt and residual meat, and cut into fine shreds. Place in a basin.

9. Add 3000ml of water to the pork skin shreds, along with cooking wine, monosodium glutamate, salt, scallions, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns. Steam in a steamer for 4 hours, then strain out the residue using a sieve and reserve the liquid.

10. Take a large enamel plate, wash and dry it, pour in half of the pork skin liquid, and refrigerate until it solidifies.

11. Then arrange the steamed salmon on top of the solidified liquid.

12. Use ham to shape the fish’s tail and fins, use black fungus for the eyes, shred the spinach to make gills, use the tips of bamboo shoots for the belly, and shiitake mushrooms for the head—arrange into four similar fish shapes.

13. Pour the remaining pork skin liquid over, let it cool and solidify, then slice and arrange the pieces back into the original fish shapes on a plate before serving.

Key Tips for Making Crystal Salmon:

1. The pork skin must be thoroughly cleaned—remove all hairs and scrape off excess fat—otherwise the liquid will not be clear and may turn cloudy.

2. The central salmon shape can also be made with other ingredients or arranged into different shapes.

3. Keep the other half of the pork skin liquid warm to prevent it from solidifying.

Health Tip:

This dish is a great summer delicacy and considered a premium cold appetizer.

Food Incompatibilities:

Wood ear (soaked): Wood ear should not be eaten with river snails. In terms of food properties, the cold nature of river snails combined with the slippery quality of wood ear is not conducive to digestion, so the two should not be consumed together.

For those suffering from hemorrhoids, wood ear and pheasant should not be eaten together, as pheasant has slight toxicity and their combination may easily trigger hemorrhoidal bleeding. Wood ear should also not be eaten with wild duck, as wild duck has a sweet and cool nature, and eating them together may lead to indigestion.