Zhuqiao Soft-Shell Turtle 朱桥甲鱼

Ingredients

Jiayu (甲鱼) is the everyday Chinese name for soft-shell turtles, freshwater animals of rivers, ponds and rice fields. For the Zhuqiao dish, the Huai'an CPPCC history site (淮安政协文史网) says the authentic turtle is a wild one from Matang (马塘) in Zhuqiao town, and the chef Yang Yuchang (杨玉昌) of the Huaiyang Cuisine Museum prefers turtles with a greenish shell.

How it is made

For the soup, the turtle is skinned with boiling water, cleaned, opened and gutted, cooked in stock, boned and cut into pieces. The pieces are stir-fried with ginger, spring onion, soy sauce and vinegar, then put into stock made in advance, brought to the boil, thickened with starch and finished with a little pepper in the bowl. The stock is said to take several whole chickens with pork bones and dried scallops, simmered for two days and two nights.

Zhuqiao cooks also steam, braise and stew the turtle. A steamed turtle stays whole, while braised and soft-stewed turtle is boned and cut up; the soft stew adds sea cucumber, squid and winter bamboo shoots. Each method has its vessel: bamboo steamers for steaming, clay pots for soup, and cast-iron woks for braising and soft stewing.

Where it comes from

The soup was already known for being mellow, fresh, rich and full-flavoured in the early 1930s. It is one of three local family-kitchen dish series of Zhuqiao, with stewed dishes and small stir-fries. Three family restaurants, the Guo, Shen and Wang turtle houses, anchor the town's turtle trade today.

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