Shaguang Fish Soup 沙光鱼汤
Shaguang Fish Soup is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
Shaguang Fish Soup (沙光鱼汤) is a milky-white fish soup from Lianyungang (连云港), Jiangsu, made with the shaguang fish (沙光鱼), a large goby that the Lianyungang city government lists as a local specialty. The fish is cooked either red-braised or in soup, and it is included in the Famous Dishes of China (中国名菜谱) cookbook.
Ingredients
The shaguang is a goby of sea and brackish water, known to zoologists as Acanthogobius hasta. It has a big mouth and eats anything it can swallow, including small fish, small shrimp and ragworms, so it grows fast: it spawns around the Qingming festival (清明) in spring, and by the Frost's Descent (霜降) solar term some fish are nearly one chi (尺) long and weigh more than four liang (两). Each generation lives for only a year.
A Lianyungang native writing in China Government Procurement News (中国政府采购新闻网) singles out the fish from the mouth of the Xiuzhen River (绣针河) on Haizhou Bay (海州湾), where river and sea water meet, which have a big head, a big mouth and a small body.
Flavour and texture
The Yancheng news site (盐城新闻网) describes the soup as milky white, salty and savoury with a sweet aftertaste, with fish so fine that it seems to melt on the tongue. Jiangsu News (中国江苏网) calls Lianyungang's shaguang soup thick, white, savoury and salty.
How it is eaten
Winter is the prime season. A Lianyungang saying, 'shaguang in the tenth month beats mutton soup' (十月沙光赛羊汤), sums up how highly the fish is rated at that time of year. The same native recalls that shaguang soup was always on his family's table at the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Spring Festival. In October 2017 the city held the China (Lianyungang) Shaguang Fish Food Culture Festival, with a cooking contest in which every entry used the fish as its main ingredient.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.