·5/11/2026
from
🐟 🍽️ Fermented stinky fish is a delicious dish
# · CHOU GUI YU ·
## Fermented Mandarin Fish — A Dish That Asks You to Wait
> The smell hits you before the plate reaches the table
> You hesitate. Everyone does, the first time
> Then you take one bite — and you understand why people have been making this for over a thousand years
---
## Ingredients
| Item | Amount |
|------|--------|
| Whole mandarin fish (鳜鱼), cleaned | 1 fish, ~800g |
| Coarse sea salt (粗盐) | 100g |
| Sichuan peppercorns (花椒粒) | 1 tbsp |
| Fresh ginger, sliced (生姜片) | 6–8 slices |
| Dried red chilies (干红辣椒) | 4–5 pieces |
| Aged Shaoxing rice wine (绍兴黄酒) | 80ml |
| Lard (猪油) | 3 tbsp |
| Dark soy sauce (老抽) | 1 tbsp |
| Light stock or hot water | 300ml |
| Green garlic shoots (青蒜苗) + small red chili | to finish |
> Yield: 2–3 servings ｜ Best served immediately ｜ Not suitable for reheating
---
## Method
1. **Score** the fish — 4–5 diagonal slits per side, 2cm deep. Pat dry.
2. **Cure** — pack coarse salt + Sichuan peppercorns into every cut, cavity, and skin surface by hand until completely white.
3. **Ferment** — press into a clay crock with ginger and green onion, weight with a stone, seal. Store at 10–15°C for 7 days. Do not open.
4. **Remove** — rinse lightly, pat dry. Skin should be amber-gold and firm.
5. **Sear** — lard in iron wok, high heat. Skin-side down, 5 min undisturbed. Flip, 2 min. Remove.
6. **Aromatics** — fry ginger, garlic, chilies 30 sec. Pour Shaoxing wine from height.
7. **Braise** — return fish, add dark soy sauce + stock to halfway. Cover, high heat, 20 min.
8. **Finish** — remove lid, reduce sauce to lacquer, 3–5 min. Plate, glaze, garnish.
---
## Step 1 · The Lineup
### Gather what cannot be rushed
One whole mandarin fish. Coarse salt. Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, chilies, and a bottle of aged Shaoxing wine.
**Nothing here is a shortcut ingredient.** Every item has a job that will take days, not minutes.
> ⚠️ Clear eyes, bright silver scales — freshness is the foundation the seven-day process depends on.
---
## Step 2 · The Cure
### Salt by hand, not by measure
Both hands. Press the salt cure into every cut, under the belly flap, behind the gills, along the spine. The fish should be completely white.
**This is not a sprinkle. Press until your hands ache.** The fermentation has nothing to work with unless the cure fully penetrates.
---
## Step 3 · The Wait
### Seven days, sealed in the dark
Fish into the crock, ginger and peppercorns over the top, river stone pressed down. Lid on.
**Seven days. Do not open it.** Time is the ingredient no one lists in the recipe.
> ⚠️ Keep at 10–15°C. Too warm tips into spoilage. Too cold and nothing develops.
---
## Step 4 · The Wake
### What you pull out is not what went in
On day seven, lift the stone. The skin has gone from silver-green to amber-gold — tight, firm, brine-glazed. Cloudy brine drips from the tail. The flesh beneath the slits has compressed, deepened in color, drawn inward around the bone.
**This is the moment of no return.** Sharp, sour, funky, complex. *Exactly as it should be.* Rinse briefly under cold water, pat completely dry before it sees the wok.
---
## Step 5 · The Sear
### Skin-side down, hands off
Lard in the iron wok, wood fire, not gas. Fish goes in skin-side down. Put the spatula down. Walk away.
**Do not move it. Five uninterrupted minutes.** The crust built here holds the entire dish together.
> ⚠️ Move it too early and the skin tears. Wait until it releases from the wok on its own.
---
## Step 6 · The Aromatics
### Wine hits hot iron
Ginger, garlic, dried chilies into the wok — thirty seconds. Then **pour the Shaoxing wine from height, without hesitation.**
It erupts. A wall of steam fills the room in two seconds. *This is the moment neighbors show up uninvited.*
---
## Step 7 · The Braise
### Dark sauce, closed lid, high heat
Fish back in. Dark soy sauce down the wok wall. Stock to halfway. Lid on, fire high, 20 minutes.
**Fermented flesh absorbs sauce faster and deeper than fresh.** Every scored cut drinks the liquid in.
> ⚠️ Do not lift the lid before 15 minutes. The trapped steam works as hard as the liquid below.
---
## Step 8 · The Finish
### Reduce, glaze, serve immediately
Lid off. High heat. The sauce goes from broth to lacquer in five minutes. **Do not walk away.**
Transfer to a rough clay plate. Ladle the reduced sauce over from height. Drop green garlic shoot rings and red chili rounds across the fish — not placed, just dropped.
*Dark. Glossy. Still steaming. The smell in the room is no longer sharp — it has settled into something deep, savory, and ancient.*
**Serve it to someone who has never smelled it before. Watch their face go from uncertain — to quiet — to reaching for seconds without saying a word.**
## Fermented Mandarin Fish — A Dish That Asks You to Wait
> The smell hits you before the plate reaches the table
> You hesitate. Everyone does, the first time
> Then you take one bite — and you understand why people have been making this for over a thousand years
---
## Ingredients
| Item | Amount |
|------|--------|
| Whole mandarin fish (鳜鱼), cleaned | 1 fish, ~800g |
| Coarse sea salt (粗盐) | 100g |
| Sichuan peppercorns (花椒粒) | 1 tbsp |
| Fresh ginger, sliced (生姜片) | 6–8 slices |
| Dried red chilies (干红辣椒) | 4–5 pieces |
| Aged Shaoxing rice wine (绍兴黄酒) | 80ml |
| Lard (猪油) | 3 tbsp |
| Dark soy sauce (老抽) | 1 tbsp |
| Light stock or hot water | 300ml |
| Green garlic shoots (青蒜苗) + small red chili | to finish |
> Yield: 2–3 servings ｜ Best served immediately ｜ Not suitable for reheating
---
## Method
1. **Score** the fish — 4–5 diagonal slits per side, 2cm deep. Pat dry.
2. **Cure** — pack coarse salt + Sichuan peppercorns into every cut, cavity, and skin surface by hand until completely white.
3. **Ferment** — press into a clay crock with ginger and green onion, weight with a stone, seal. Store at 10–15°C for 7 days. Do not open.
4. **Remove** — rinse lightly, pat dry. Skin should be amber-gold and firm.
5. **Sear** — lard in iron wok, high heat. Skin-side down, 5 min undisturbed. Flip, 2 min. Remove.
6. **Aromatics** — fry ginger, garlic, chilies 30 sec. Pour Shaoxing wine from height.
7. **Braise** — return fish, add dark soy sauce + stock to halfway. Cover, high heat, 20 min.
8. **Finish** — remove lid, reduce sauce to lacquer, 3–5 min. Plate, glaze, garnish.
---
## Step 1 · The Lineup
### Gather what cannot be rushed
One whole mandarin fish. Coarse salt. Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, chilies, and a bottle of aged Shaoxing wine.
**Nothing here is a shortcut ingredient.** Every item has a job that will take days, not minutes.
> ⚠️ Clear eyes, bright silver scales — freshness is the foundation the seven-day process depends on.
---
## Step 2 · The Cure
### Salt by hand, not by measure
Both hands. Press the salt cure into every cut, under the belly flap, behind the gills, along the spine. The fish should be completely white.
**This is not a sprinkle. Press until your hands ache.** The fermentation has nothing to work with unless the cure fully penetrates.
---
## Step 3 · The Wait
### Seven days, sealed in the dark
Fish into the crock, ginger and peppercorns over the top, river stone pressed down. Lid on.
**Seven days. Do not open it.** Time is the ingredient no one lists in the recipe.
> ⚠️ Keep at 10–15°C. Too warm tips into spoilage. Too cold and nothing develops.
---
## Step 4 · The Wake
### What you pull out is not what went in
On day seven, lift the stone. The skin has gone from silver-green to amber-gold — tight, firm, brine-glazed. Cloudy brine drips from the tail. The flesh beneath the slits has compressed, deepened in color, drawn inward around the bone.
**This is the moment of no return.** Sharp, sour, funky, complex. *Exactly as it should be.* Rinse briefly under cold water, pat completely dry before it sees the wok.
---
## Step 5 · The Sear
### Skin-side down, hands off
Lard in the iron wok, wood fire, not gas. Fish goes in skin-side down. Put the spatula down. Walk away.
**Do not move it. Five uninterrupted minutes.** The crust built here holds the entire dish together.
> ⚠️ Move it too early and the skin tears. Wait until it releases from the wok on its own.
---
## Step 6 · The Aromatics
### Wine hits hot iron
Ginger, garlic, dried chilies into the wok — thirty seconds. Then **pour the Shaoxing wine from height, without hesitation.**
It erupts. A wall of steam fills the room in two seconds. *This is the moment neighbors show up uninvited.*
---
## Step 7 · The Braise
### Dark sauce, closed lid, high heat
Fish back in. Dark soy sauce down the wok wall. Stock to halfway. Lid on, fire high, 20 minutes.
**Fermented flesh absorbs sauce faster and deeper than fresh.** Every scored cut drinks the liquid in.
> ⚠️ Do not lift the lid before 15 minutes. The trapped steam works as hard as the liquid below.
---
## Step 8 · The Finish
### Reduce, glaze, serve immediately
Lid off. High heat. The sauce goes from broth to lacquer in five minutes. **Do not walk away.**
Transfer to a rough clay plate. Ladle the reduced sauce over from height. Drop green garlic shoot rings and red chili rounds across the fish — not placed, just dropped.
*Dark. Glossy. Still steaming. The smell in the room is no longer sharp — it has settled into something deep, savory, and ancient.*
**Serve it to someone who has never smelled it before. Watch their face go from uncertain — to quiet — to reaching for seconds without saying a word.**