Fish with Pickled Mustard Greens 酸菜鱼

Where it comes from

According to local tradition recorded by Jiangjin's Shuangfu Subdistrict (双福街道), the dish began at the Zou Fish Eatery (邹鱼食店) in what was then Jinfu Township (津福乡), Jiangjin County. Zou Kaixi took over a small roadside restaurant serving home cooking from his father, a village cook of the Republican era who had catered local weddings and funerals. One summer day he cut pickled radish from an old crock into threads and cooked it with crucian carp, and passing drivers kept stopping for it.

In 1982 Zou hung out the Zou Fish Eatery sign and sold only grass carp. After about a year of refining the method he moved the shop to Shuanghe (双河场) and renamed it Zou Kaixi Suancai Fish (邹开喜酸菜鱼). The subdistrict says Zou Kaixi Suancai Fish then spread beyond Jiangjin across China, that it has been listed among the noted dishes of Sichuan cuisine, and that it appears in the book China Food Geography (中国美食地理).

Ingredients

Radish that had sat long in the crock tasted good but had a poor texture, so after several trials Zou switched to ordinary pickled greens (泡菜) and replaced the crucian carp with grass carp. In this version, which diners took to at once, the pickled greens are crisp and full of flavour and the fish slices are smooth, tender and fragrant.

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