Introduction to the Origin Characteristics and Quality Features of Hongze Lake Crab

Jinshui brand Hongze Lake crab has delicate, tender meat, a delicious flavor and rich nutrition. Compared with other crabs or other aquatic products, it contains less water and is especially rich in nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates and vitamin A.

Before eating crab, it is best to choose a crab that is large, has all its legs and is strong and active. Dead crabs must never be eaten. Because the protein in dead crabs decomposes, the flesh spoils and deteriorates, and bacteria multiply rapidly; eating them can be severely life-threatening. "A beggar eating dead crabs finds every one 'fresh'" is used to describe certain people who do not understand the way of eating and are rather casual about what they eat; it does not mean that beggars are so poor that they have no choice but to eat dead crabs.

The common way to eat Jinshui brand Hongze Lake Chinese mitten crab, according to<清嘉录>what is said: "It is fried in soup and then eaten, hence it is called 'fried crab'." It is probably because the pronunciation of fried crab is the same as that of sluice crab that Hongze Lake big fried crab was written as Hongze Lake big sluice crab. For those who are more particular, the crab is tied firmly with string and steamed in a pot before eating, which is called "steamed crab". Before putting it in the pot, wash the crab clean; when putting it in the pot, add some Chinese herbal medicine perilla or ginger, yellow rice wine and a tiny amount of table salt and cook it together, to avoid cold and remove fishiness. When eating, mix sour vinegar, cooked soy sauce, shredded ginger and white sugar evenly as a condiment, and use a special set of tools: scissors, tongs, picks, hammer and so on, to tap and carefully peel the crab, dip it in the condiment and taste it, and the flavor is endless. If you can follow the experience of "ninth month female, tenth month male", it tastes even better.

There is another way of eating called "flour-coated crab". After washing the crab, cut it into two, coat it with batter made from flour, put it in an oil pot and fry it lightly before eating. This was a common home-cooked side dish in the past, convenient and tasty. Of course, nowadays it is not so convenient.

There is another way of eating called "drunken crab". It is said that Tang Bohu, the most romantic talented scholar of Jiangnan, once painted a "Drunken Crab Picture", and later the owner of a restaurant in Suzhou used his wits and trial-produced drunken crab for the market. Once it was eaten, it caused a sensation and spread widely, making crab prices in Suzhou jump three times in a day and rise several times. To make drunken crab: choose a number of Jinshui brand Hongze Lake crabs as the raw material, use Suzhou specialty Fuzhen wine, Shaoxing wine, table salt, Sichuan pepper, ginger and orange peel as seasonings, seal for one week, and then it can be taken out and eaten. If the weather is hot, this can be shortened to three days. When serving, first cut the crab open, remove the crab navel (commonly called crab straw raincoat) and other filth, rinse briefly in the original brine, and chop into small pieces to eat. Once it enters the mouth, the wine fragrance fills the nose, the meat is tender and the roe is full, and it is extremely delicious. There are also many ways to eat crab. According to statistics in "Chinese Wine Classic", there are such kinds as ginger-flavored hairy crab, drunken crab, salted crab, wine-drenched crab, steamed crab, golden plate jade crab, jade crab, filled crab powder, flour-dragged crab, fried crab and so on.