stickavish

Some good identifications. Thanks! But, there are a couple I suspect are wrong. #3 - i don't think this is a trout, the body and mouth are much more like a snapper or small grouper. #4 - growing up in florida, when i hear 'gar', i think alligator gar, and this doesn't resemble that at all. it was 30-35 cm and the mouth/bill is very different. #7 is a john dory, not a flounder. i believe the putonghua name is something like 'horse face fish'. #8 these were also quite small, no bigger than 35 cm. #15 is definitely not a red snapper. the head, mouth and body are totally different. #17 these were not like any clams i've seen before. the small white 'tail' is distinctly different, and the shape of the shell is not like a small geoduck/new england 'steamer', which is my only point of reference (with the external appendage). #20 these are not bonito. wrong shape, size and coloration. don't what they are, though. Any else chip in and fill in the blanks, especially numbers 2 and 13?

EGullet seafood specialists! One of the great, underused resources of Shanghai is the Tongchuan Wholesale Fish Market. It's a twenty minute cab ride north of town. It is more wholesale than retail, but there are plenty of average people out buying their seafood from a hundred or more different stalls. . Prices are cheap, selection is fantastic, and the best part is the restaurant street adjacent to the market, where you can take your purchases and have them cook them for you - they'll give you your suggestions for the cooking of each different fish, shellfish, or 'other'. Or you can bring your own butter, like we did on our last trip, ask them to melt it, and devour crabs and beer until you can't move. We try to do it monthly, and this time I brought my camera to help answer all of my "what the. . . " questions. I'm posting these photos in the hopes that our resident specialists can identify alot of these fish and "others" that I'm not familiar with. I'd really appreciate it if you can provide the english and/or mandarin chinese name, also, in pinyin or hanzi. The fish in the photos are numbered for reference, and there are also a couple of shots of the market in action. . Good luck!

well, not a perfect resolution to this problem, i must admit. on the suggestion here, i changed the milk/nitrite brine to a water/nitrite brine, at a 0.1% strength, i.e., 1g of nitrite per kilo water. this significantly reduced the oxidation, but did not completely stop it. i'm cautious to increase amounts of the nitrite. a 55 C temp. has yielded a very good result thus far, which is 6+ months of daily operation from me, and years of doing to 55 C for the chef de cuisine. what exactly would be difference at 43 C? a creamier torchon/terrine, i'm assuming. does it affect it how solid it re-sets? another question: in the last week or two, another chef has been doing it. he swears he is using the same method i demonstrated/explained, but the result has been a very crumbly and slightly more oxidized terrine. as he has also previously produced a fine result, i am a little stumped as to the cause of this - overcooking of the foie gras? over-brining? over-absorption of water into the liver during the brining? thanks for all your suggestions so far.

I'm living here at the moment. Three at the Bund is the epicenter for high-end Western food. Laris, Jean-Georges (will probably fall into your 'contemporary' tag on some points - using acyl gellans, chemicals that turn liquid fats into a dry powder, and then re-form on your tongue, etc.), Whampoa Club (previous comment was in line with opinion here - great, modern and inventive Shanghainese), and then Sens on the Bund (pourcel brothers shanghai outpost), and the new Jade restaurant at Pudong Shangri-la. Crystal Jade is a local favorite, and one of the best restaurants in town for multi-regional Chinese. Fantastic la mian (hand pulled noodles), xiao long bao (one of the shanghai legends) dumplings, shen jiang bao. The roast meats - pork, duck - are done to perfection, although I have to say my favorite is the chinese eggplant and fresh crab, bound with a little big of egg white. The 'rich expatriate' cliche of these restaurant's clientele is a little naive. The local, and Hong Kong businessmen here are making enormous sums of money, and i would venture to guess much more than your average Western businessman out for a nice dinner at Jean-Georges. Just take a look around the dining rooms of these places. Prices vary as much as the food. You can find incredible shen jiang bao on Wujiang Lu for under $0.50, or you can spend $200 per person at one of the afore-mentioned businesses and come away disappointed. Sure, you can eat your meals for $2-3 per day, but you're going to dig through ALOT of mediocre (at best) dishes with the rare gem - the shen jian bao, for example. Prices at the western restaurants are in line with the global market. Shanghai has cheap options, but is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, if you're patronizing the fine dining restaurants.

eGullet scientists, I'm having a little trouble at work with some foie gras we are using oxidizing rather quickly. The end result is a 1x1x3cm piece of terrine, although the word may not be exactly suitable for what we're doing. The process is this (metric): Separate the foie gras into lobes. Brine 24-48 hours in a milk/nitrite solution. I've tried a range of percentages, from 0.5% (5g /kg) - 1.0%, with not much discernible difference. Remove from brine, pat dry, season with salt, sugar, pepper, vacuum pack, cook in 65 C water bath until 55 C at heart. Shock, and then pass through a tamis to remove veins. It's then put into an even layer on a GN tray, cooled to set, and cut to specs. It yields a smooth, consistent, nearly waste-free product - with the exception of the rate of oxidation. I have done the same process and yielded a product that remained a natural pink for up to 72 hours. I have done the process and lost the foie gras within 12 hours. I've done it and skipped the brine/nitrite altogether, which has yielded such a result that I question whether the brine/nitrite is even worth it. I've made a salt mix (94% salt, 6% nitrite) and then used this mix at 12g/kg dry. It created uneven oxidized patches on the liver. Chef de cuisine contends that putting it through the tamis, and thus exposing so much surface area, is the culprit. It makes sense, but i have reservations, as i have done this perhaps 75+ times, and gotten a beautiful result. There seems to be no consistency to the problem. I have also been making a separate terrine, in a different process - tempering the foie gras, removing the primary and secondary vein, using a minimal amount of clean straight cuts, in order not to damage the foie gras, and then brining this. Seasoning the following day, mold in cylinder, wrap in film, cryovac, cook sous vide to 55, shock. This also seems to oxidize more quickly than it should. Chef de cuisine, who recommended the brining, as practiced by french charcutiers, also mentions they are using saltpeter (potassium nitra/ite?), and possibly sugar, but it can tend to cause that bright pink unnatural look. I have ordered and received this, but another variable in this equation is that I am in mainland China, and am cautious about adding these chemicals to food, as i cannot guarantee that they are explicitly food safe - it goes without saying that we do not want to cause any harm to our customers. Other possible variables - foie gras itself is locally produced (Shanghai). Purity of nitrite (?). Thanks for any other suggestions.