Seaweed-Battered Yellow Croaker 苔菜拖黄鱼

Seaweed-Battered Yellow Croaker (苔菜拖黄鱼) is a Ningbo (宁波) dish of yellow croaker fried in batter and flavoured with taitiao (苔条), a dried green seaweed from the local shore. Ningbo Daily lists it among the yellow croaker dishes Ningbo people commonly cook, and CCTV's programme Nongguang Tiandi (农广天地) included it in a 2014 episode on seven Ningbo snacks.

Ingredients

Taitiao is fresh sea moss that has been dried into strands. China Ningbo Net (中国宁波网) says Ningbo people have eaten it for more than a thousand years and pick it on the tidal flats in February and March, when it is greenest, then wash it in flowing seawater and dry it on racks by the sea. The site says Ningbo people regard it as the sea's 'flavour enhancer' (味之素): salty and savoury with a slight sweetness. In China Ningbo Net's description the fish is freshly salted small yellow croaker.

How it is made

The crisp taitiao is crushed to a fine powder and stirred into a batter. The salted fish is dipped and deep-fried until the coating puffs up and turns golden. In a second method the seaweed is left out of the batter and scattered over the fish after frying; China Ningbo Net says both give the same texture. Chen Jibo (陈继波) is a provincial-level heritage bearer of the Ningbo cooking technique of Zhuangyuanlou (状元楼), a time-honoured Ningbo restaurant. He told Zhejiang News (浙江新闻) in 2018 that the old version was coated in wheat flour only, while the restaurant now mixes flour with starch and a little glutinous and plain rice flour, following Cantonese practice, for a fuller shape.

Flavour and texture

The fried fish comes out golden with a faint green showing through, crisp outside and tender inside. China Ningbo Net likens each plump piece to a baby mouse trailing a thin 'tail'.