In addition to the high-value hairy crab, there is also an inconspicuous small stone crab in the water town of the south of the Yangtze River, which can be seen everywhere on the bank of the river, in the ditch, next to the canal, under the ridge, in the mountain stream, and even in the cracks of the stones where there is water. This kind of crab is not big, except for a few legs, the earthy brown back shell is the size of water chestnuts, and four or five together are afraid that it is not worth the weight of a large hairy crab. Because this kind of small crab also has long hairs on its legs, when we were children, we called them hairy stone crabs, and when they shouted, they became cat feces crabs.

Catch a small stone crab from the shallow water, open the lid under the abdomen (the pointed cover of the male, the round cover of the female), pinch a straw stick and poke its navel, it will spit out a string of bubbles, and then there will be children dancing and singing: cat poop crab cat poop crab...... Half of the belly pocket turned up, spit bubbles and feed him milk!

But it's not easy to catch these small stone crabs, because they usually live in holes. A small crab in the shallow water activities, foraging, even the two small eyes that can be flexibly rotated in different directions can see clearly, you want to catch it, but not wait for you to stretch out your hand, as long as your figure shakes slightly, the little thing moves much faster than you, has already turned around and cleverly ran into a small hole not far away, even the route seems to have been designed in advance.

The hole may be very deep, it may be connected to other holes, do you know where it has fled? Look again, there are many small holes dug under the water on both sides like a camp, and some of them have fresh earth piled up outside the holes. These holes, next to the water, leaning on the shore, the scenery on both sides of the strait is very good, you have to admire them are very good at choosing a home environment.

But like humans, among these small stone crabs, there are also many lazy and unwilling to dig holes to build homes, or have had a home but have lost it for one reason or another, or think that fish and shrimp can live well without digging holes, so they don't dig holes to find that trouble, or there are too many crabs, and most of the crabs are affected by the tension of the land, and everyone can't build a home, so they simply don't want Narausch's home and be a complete proletarian.

In short, after drying out a pellet or blocking a section of the canal to release the water, it is common to catch many small stone crabs with panicked fish and shrimp. Once they are thrown into the smooth-walled lead buckets with muddy water, there is no way to escape.

Take these small crabs home half a bucket and half a bucket, wash them clean, wrap them in a layer of salty batter with eggs, and fry them in an oil pan until they are browned, fragrant and crispy, and the small paste yellow inside is especially delicious. A crab is cut into four cloves with two knives horizontally and vertically, and boiled with oil, salt, sauce and vinegar and ginger and chili peppers, which is also very delicious. Fried and braised must not be able to be eaten, so make it into crab sauce and eat it all year round. In that era when there was no monosodium glutamate chicken essence, crab sauce was the best condiment for ordinary people in Jiangnan.

Making crab sauce is actually very simple, first drop two drops of sesame oil in the water to force the crab to spit out the internal organs, and then wash and scrub them one by one and put them into the jar, add salt, sugar, shochu, chili powder, mash them layer by layer with a wooden pestle, and finally tie the mouth of the altar tightly, smear the yellow mud on the outside, and seal it. There are also people who use a stone mill to slowly grind the crab, grind it evenly and finely, one time is not enough, often have to grind several times, until the light yellow viscous paste sauce flows out of the grinding groove. After grinding, put more liquor in the jar, not only can remove the fishy smell, which is conducive to preservation, but also makes the aroma of crab sauce rise suddenly in the future.

After a month, the crab sauce ferments and matures, opens the jar and seals it, and can scoop out a layer of bright crab oil marinade, and the roast meat and stir-fry are put on a little bit, which is so fresh that people die. The freshly made crab sauce is milky yellow, steamed on the rice pot, sprinkled with some cooked sesame seeds, the sauce is fragrant, and you can drink and eat. Some people also remove the seeds of the chili peppers, cut them into small circles, add diced tofu, scoop a spoonful of crab paste, mix it with tofu and milk marinade and steam it out, and wash it on the rice. Tender peanuts, green edamame rice, white diced red peppers, can all be mixed with crab sauce and steamed in the pot. Crab sauce can also be fried and eaten, just add more oil to avoid sticking to the pan. But the steamed crab sauce is delicious, authentic, and unstoppable.

Not only small stone crabs can make sauce, but shrimp can also make sauce, which is called shrimp paste. Even those big hairy crabs that can't be eaten for a while are often used to make sauce. The big hairy crab first removes the gills, tongs and other sundries, chops into small pieces, mashes, and chops the crab claws into sections, and crushes the shells with the back of the knife. Mix with salt, ginger, chili pepper and shochu and seal it in a large absorbent jar. After a period of fermentation, turning back and forth a few times in the middle, a jar of crab sauce is ready. When a countryman visits relatives and friends, a small bowl of crab sauce is a good gift.

Hairy crabs are all farmed, and truly wild ones are rare. However, there are still many traces of small stone crabs in the wild, which are often sold in vegetable markets, as well as street food stalls, and often wear this kind of small crab on bamboo skewers and fried in an oil pan, and sell it exclusively to those greedy girls to eat. I once ate with someone else at a "family house", and while I waited, I usually liked to walk to the back of the kitchen to watch the cooking.

Just as the chef just put a bunch of small stone crabs cut into the pot and exploded, there was a lot of oil in the pot, and the pot with an open flame was turned up a few times, and the chef stretched out a long spoon and scooped a full spoonful of soup in a steel pot next to him, and the fire was suddenly gone, and then scooped the seasoning from those bowls one by one, and poured down the minced meat that had been boiled first, and finally the long spoon reached into the water starch basin and stirred, scooped a small half spoon into the pot to thicken, and then poured oil when serving.

When this dish was served, I put a piece in my mouth, and I could tell that there was also a sweet noodle sauce in it, which made it more chewy, and the crab was finely ground with my teeth in my mouth, and there was an indescribable fragrance and sweetness......

The so-called lake water boiled lake fish, authentic Kuihu Lake floating fish, must be selected from Kuitan Lake fresh and fresh bighead carp about three catties, cooked with lake water, served in a large white iron basin. Such a pot of red and spicy drifting fish, the unique flavor is tempting, and the food is unforgettable.

For those who are close to the spatula by nature, you may wish to walk to the kitchen while waiting for the food to be served, hand over a cigarette, and talk a few words, and then stand by and watch the cooking. This method of floating fish is actually very simple: clean up the fish, split the head and body in half, become hard and soft, and then cut the thorn card into a thin and not thick block, mix with an appropriate amount of cornstarch, salt, soy sauce, and pinch it with your hands to help it taste.

Put lard in the pot, after the oil is hot, put in the ginger shreds, the garlic cloves that have been patted, a large spoonful of bright red water-milled red peppers and the dark black farmhouse sauce to stir-fry together, then pour in the appropriate amount of water, wait for the water to bubble and open, the fish pieces that were previously marinated a little stiff are scattered and thrown into the pot with their hands, cover the pot with a strong fire, slightly turn over with a spatula in the middle, boil one or two rolls, grab a pinch of tender garlic leaves, fragrant coriander and sprinkle it, you can lift the pot and put it into the white iron basin with the steaming hot air.

The heat and time determine whether the fish is tender or not, if the fire is small, it must be delayed, the fish is too old, coarse and less flavorful. If the heat is not enough, the first thing is that the fishy smell cannot be exhausted. Also, don't cut the grickets crosswise when chopping the fish fillets, otherwise the thin fish fillets will be full of short gabs, which will be annoying to spit out.

A pot of red soup is a way of eating handed down by our ancestors. Taste it on the tip of the tongue, applaud, subdued the taste buds with just one bite, and sighed that the long-lost taste is coming again. In fact, I have long been able to concoct such a floating fish stew. A few years ago, on a warm winter afternoon, a literary friend came from the provincial city and asked me to be a sword warrior myself.

Kunzi sliced meat and green and tender garlic sprouts are stir-fried, the bighead carp head is slightly fried with white water "Du" tofu, and the meat body is cut and salted and burned into a red and spicy soup. Who knows that green, white and red are served on the table, and the red soup fish pieces are the most sought after.

The cooking method of drifting fish itself can be regarded as boiling, that is, boiling water into the food, and it is spicy, especially this pepper is neither sharp red pepper nor the kind of chopped pepper commonly used in Hunan cuisine, but belongs to the pickled water-milled red pepper, local flavor, distinctive personality. It's just that I myself am not tolerant of spicy, so the red soup I burned out is only slightly red, and when marinating fish, I must mix it with cooking wine to add some sweetness, and I do not hesitate to put more ginger - this is the advantage of absorbing southern Jiangsu dishes, and I have to put a spoonful of cooked lard before starting the pot, so the entrance is salty and fresh, the bend is caused, the aftertaste is lingering, spicy and not spicy, like a shadow, are between the similar and the unlike.

Cooking the fish without spicy spicy soup and adding a little ham and bamboo shoot slices to the soup is not a fine cooking, but just smelling the aroma and taking a sip of the fish soup will make you feel refreshed and appetite...... And the meat attached to the big card on both sides of the fish ribs really has the taste of tender crab meat!