Fish Head Casserole 砂锅鱼头
Fish Head Casserole is featured among the local specialties of Taiwan.
Image notes
Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited.
Fish Head Casserole (砂锅鱼头) is a clay-pot stew of fried bighead carp in a pork-bone and shacha broth, and a well-known dish of Chiayi City (嘉义市). The Chiayi City Government's tourism site lists it with turkey rice (火鸡肉饭) among the well-known local foods at the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市).
How it is made
The Chiayi City Government's entry for Lin Cong-ming's Casserole Fish Head (林聪明沙锅鱼头) in Taiwan's tourism open data describes that shop's method. A pork-bone stock simmers from morning until afternoon, more than ten hours in all, until it turns from white to the colour of thick soy milk. The fish is bighead carp (大头鲢), delivered fresh. The head is cut from above the gills, the middle and tail are cut into pieces, and all of it is fried golden so the outside is crisp.
The stock is then cooked with napa cabbage, wood ear fungus, dried shrimp, tofu, tofu skin, garlic, chilli, spring onion, pork and a special shacha sauce (沙茶酱), and the fried fish head goes in last.
Flavour and texture
The same entry describes the broth as rich and mellow, a little spicy but not too hot, and the fried fish as crisp outside and juicy within.
Where it comes from
Lin Cong-ming's shop, which Chinese Wikipedia describes as a Chiayi eatery known for its queues, was founded in 1953. The city government's entry calls the dish a Chiayi specialty with a 60-year history. In 2019 the shop appeared in the Netflix mini-series Street Food: Asia (世界小吃：亚洲).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.