Red Yeast Eel Thick Soup 红烧鳗羹
Red Yeast Eel Thick Soup is featured among the local specialties of Taiwan.
Red Yeast Eel Thick Soup (红烧鳗羹) is a bowl of fried, red-yeast-marinated sea eel in soup, listed by Chinese Wikipedia among the foods of Keelung Miaokou (基隆庙口), the food market around Dianji Temple (奠济宫) in Keelung (基隆), Taiwan.
Ingredients
According to Chinese Wikipedia, the Taiwanese version uses sea eel (海鳗) rather than the white eel common in Japanese cooking. The hongshao (红烧) in the Chinese name does not mean braised: it is a mishearing of hongzao (红糟), the red yeast (红麹) used heavily as a seasoning in Fuzhou (福州) cuisine, so the original name "hongzao eel" drifted into "hongshao eel" over time.
How it is made
Large chunks of wild deep-sea eel are marinated with red yeast and other seasonings, then deep-fried until crisp. The soup is simmered slowly from fish bones and tails with Chinese medicinal herbs such as danggui (当归, angelica root), chuanxiong (川芎, a lovage root) and cassia bark (桂皮). Each shop keeps its own broth recipe, and some use a lighter cabbage (高丽菜) stock as the base instead. Chinese Wikipedia describes the fish as tender yet firm and the broth as mellow and sweet, with the aroma of a herbal tonic.
Where it comes from
Chinese Wikipedia dates the spread of the dish in Taiwan to the 1960s, when fish farms raised eels in quantity for export to Japan and sea fishing often brought in sea eel. It then became common in eateries, banquets and snack stalls. In Keelung it is sold at Miaokou, whose rise the Keelung City tourism site credits to Dianji Temple and to the steady stream of worshippers, local residents and fishermen that brought trade to the area.
