Detailed Explanation of Fish Ball Processing and Production Techniques

Fish balls are delicious and nutritious, making them a fine dish on the dining table, especially suitable for the elderly and children. To process high-quality fish balls, the following technical points must be mastered: Material selection and handling. For processing fish balls, fresh fish weighing 1500 yuan-4000 grams should be selected. If the fish is too small, the finished product will not be smooth and tender; if the fish is too large, the meat will be tough and not pleasant to the palate. Remove the scales, gills, and internal organs from the selected fish, cut off the fish head, keep the fish meat, and pick out the small bones.

Rinsing the meat and mincing it into paste. Rinse the clean fish meat in clear water for half an hour to remove the blood and impurities, then scoop it into gauze and squeeze out the water. Then place the fish meat on a clean pork skin and chop it repeatedly, or spread some starch on the cutting board before chopping repeatedly. First, use the back of the knife to pound the fish meat into a paste, then use two knives to repeatedly chop from left to right. When chopping, the knife should be light, and the finer the chop, the better. When collecting the paste, the portion of paste stuck to the bottom layer of the cutting board can be removed to maintain the good color of the fish paste.

Reasonable ingredient proportions. Generally, for 300 grams of clean fish meat, add 6 grams of salt, 10 grams of dry starch, the egg white of 1 egg, 7 grams of lard, and 300 grams of water, plus a little scallion-ginger juice (made by cutting ginger and scallions into shreds and soaking them in boiling water), cooking wine, and MSG.

Stirring the fish paste. Put the fish paste into a basin, add salt, and rub and knead repeatedly with the palm of your hand. Due to the osmotic effect of salt, the fish paste will form lumps and become very elastic. At this point, add water in stages and stir the fish paste in one direction, from slow to fast, with force from light to heavy. When the fish paste is stirred until it makes a "de de" sound and feels stiffened, add water a second time and continue stirring in one direction until all 300 grams of water have been added. Finally, add dry starch, egg white, lard, scallion-ginger juice, cooking wine, etc., and stir evenly.

Cooking method. Add an appropriate amount of water or fresh stock to the pot. When the water temperature is around 60°C, gently push the fish balls with a spatula, but the water must not boil, so that boiling water does not break the fish balls apart. Wait until a gel film forms on the outside of the fish balls, then bring to a boil over high heat. Once the fish balls are cooked, scoop them out and they are ready to eat. They can also be used as the main ingredient for braised, stewed, and other dishes.