Fish Stew with Pot-Baked Flatbread 鱼锅饼子

Where it comes from

The Weihai News Network describes the dish as a product of hard times. Fishing families could rarely afford white flour, rice or pork, so they bought cheaper maize, ground it into meal and cooked it with their own catch, and this pot of cakes and fish was their staple all year. The dish first appeared along the Jiaodong (胶东) coast; later, when large numbers of Shandong people migrated to the north-east, it was carried to Dalian (大连) in Liaoning.

How it is made

The cakes are made from local Weihai cornmeal mixed with bean flour in a ratio of three parts corn to one part bean, ground slightly coarse. The fish must be fresh; some cooks use a single kind, others a mix of small fish. One Weihai News Network recipe combines small pomfret, small flatfish, conger eel, small Spanish mackerel and hairtail.

Spring onion, ginger, garlic and chilli are fried in oil in a large iron pot, then wheat-flour sauce (面酱) is fried until fragrant before the fish goes in with enough water to cover it. Once the pot boils, the cook pats a lump of dough flat between the palms and slaps it onto the hot pot wall just above the liquid; a cold pot will not hold the cake. With the lid on, the fish simmers over low heat for about half an hour, and a final blast of high heat reduces the sauce. Traditionally the dish is cooked in a large pot over a wood fire under a wooden lid.

How it is eaten

The lower part of each cake soaks in the fish broth while the upper part toasts to a golden crust. The soaked strip of cake, full of the broth, is the part diners compete for, eaten together with the tender fish.