Food

Deep-Fried Eel with Rice Wine Residue

This food item is crunchy on the outside and delicate on the inside. As soon as a piece of such fish is consumed, it instantly goes down the throat. To make this dish, take more than five kilograms fresh sea eel, cut it sideways into thin, rectangular slices in line with the bone texture, soak them in old wine and rice wine residue for half an hour, mix refined flour with egg and add a dose of residue before stirring. Now deep-fry the ingredients. Once cooked, the dish should take on a bright red color and emit a wine-like fragrance. Fresh yet crisp, salty yet sweet, and free of all fishiness, that is the taste that will make your mouth water. Of course, it would be much better if you can dip a slice in chili sauce and add it to the dish while drinking.

Stir-Fried Goose Barnacle with Scallion

Goose barnacle, also known as stalked barnacle, gets the name “turtle’s feet” from its similarity to those parts of said animal as well as the crown of a rooster, which itself is often likened to the closed hands of the Buddha. This barnacle, in fact an crustacean, boasts a hard shell composed of calcareous plates, which allows it to cling to the cleft or crevice between near-sea reefs. The animal preys on other animals by extending its cured feet and sending out a deadly vibration from time to time.

Pan-Fried Sweet Dumplings

The Pingtanese call this dish you geng. These are wrappings with sweet potato and potato flour stuffed with sweetened bean paste or sand sugar and star anise, and the dumplings are pan fried and scooped out until they turn yellow. Have a bite, and their special flavor will wash over your taste buds!

Little Good Lucks

Pingtan boasts a long list of great foods, in particular the stuffed flour ball. The stuffing and thin flour make it fresh, translucent, and delicious, which makes it no wonder that it has already lasted in popularity for over 100 years. Locals like eating it at any festival, and it was them that gave the treat this highly auspicious name.

Spring Rolls

According to locals, spring rolls are also called “spring cakes”. Add egg drops and salt into refined flour to make a thin glutinous liquid, and pan fry it until it turns into slices. Sautée bean sprouts, leeks, meat shreds, fish chunks, oysters, clams, Chinese razor clams, shrimps, and purple seaweed, and use them all as stuffing. Wrap it all in dough, and you can gulp it down in one bite!

Pingtan Mackerel Balls

Today, fish balls have become something unattractive, as they are often seen on the table. The reason is that excessive consumption makes people less likely to buy it when out and about. The situation is also not helped at all when supermarket-sold fish balls are coarsely cooked or rotten. How can such things possibly be regarded as a delicious food? Only Pingtan’s mackerel balls can let you savor the genuine and original taste of such a food. City dishes pale in comparison.

Biēng-nṳ̆k-iéng

This delicacy is also called “Little Periwinkle”, as each dumpling looks like the special flower. The treat has another name suggesting the presence of boiled and peeled mature duck egg. In the Fuzhou dialect, duck egg is pronounced ya lang, which sounds like the phrase denoting the “suppression of waves”, showing the local people’s best wishes for all life. Would not all things become peaceful if all violent waves were suppressed?

Stewed Seafood with Glass Noodles

This is a household dish in Pingtan. Be it large or small, every hotel and restaurant has this dish on offer.

Glutinous Rice with Green Crabs

The green crab used here is from Dongxiang Island. Legend says this dish was once a rarity for ancient royal courts, and the people consider it a supertonic of sorts. The dish has a considerably notable effect on babies who have just begun to learn how to walk.

Fried Eight-Treasure Cake

This cake, also known as potato flower or stewed egg cake, is another traditional signature dish with a taste that just has to be experienced.