Sanqingshan Rock Frog 三清山石鸡

Sanqingshan Rock Frog (三清山石鸡) is a frog dish from Mount Sanqing (三清山), the granite mountain in the north-east of Shangrao (上饶), Jiangxi, which became a World Natural Heritage site in 2008. The Chinese name means 'stone chicken', but the animal is a frog from the mountain's streams, and the official Sanqingshan website lists it first among the mountain's local dishes, stir-fried over a fierce heat as baochao shiji (爆炒石鸡).

Where it comes from

The Sanqingshan website says the frog lives in rock caves along the mountain streams of Mount Sanqing. It describes the animal as frog-shaped and black-brown all over, with stout, hairy hind legs, and a strong jumper. Shiji (石鸡) is also one of the common Chinese names of the giant spiny frog (Quasipaa spinosa), which Wikipedia describes as living in pools of mountain streams and in rock crevices south of the Yangtze, feeding mainly on insects at night and hibernating from November to April.

Flavour and texture

The Sanqingshan website calls the meat exceptionally tasty, with plenty of gelatin-rich juice that it compares to soft-shelled turtle, and ranks it among the rare delicacies of the mountain. In traditional food terms it classes the frog as warming.

Ingredients

Adult giant spiny frogs measure 8 to 20 cm and weigh 200 to 350 g, which makes them a large frog. Wikipedia notes that the species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, mainly because of hunting for food, and that it is among the key protected wild animals of Jiangxi and Anhui. It has been widely farmed for food since the 1980s, with the aim of stopping the capture of wild frogs for the table.