Salt curing meats involves rubbing salt on, or soaking the meat in a salt brine and then allowing the meat to dry. The salt helps to destroy any bacteria that may turn the meat rancid and assists in drawing out the moisture thereby speeding up the drying process. Salt curing has been used for centuries and was the primary means of preserving foods prior to refrigeration. Heat can speed the curing process while both sugar and smoke can be used to reduce the need for excessive salt.

Salt curing of meats is still popular in China, even in modern Shanghai. The need for cool temperatures during the curing process means that cured meats are typically a seasonal food that is widely available during the winter months, but in Shanghai they can be had for a price any time of the year.

It’s a common site during the winter months to see fish or duck or even pork hanging outside restaurants, people’s homes, and wet markets slowly drying. The picture above is a great example of some fish drying outside a market.

The dish I recently had that prompted this post is called mán xiāng (鳗香). It’s exclusively found in Shanghai and surrounding areas and due to the fact that it’s a cold cured fish it’s only widely available in the winter months. It’s quite often found at dinner tables during Chinese New Year.

The dish isn’t actually a fish at all, it’s a type of eel found in the tide waters around Shanghai. The eel is wildly popular in Shanghai and it can be seen at nearly every fresh food market in the city. On average it is about three feet long and 6-10 inches in diameter.

Dried eel as it turns out is a great appetizer. The eel is served in small pieces and a small bowl of vinegar usually accompanies it as a dipping sauce as the salt and vinegar play off each other nicely. The eel tastes just like dried fish, and if you didn’t know any better you would likely assume that it was simply dried fish. In typical authentic Chinese food fashion the bones haven’t been removed before serving so a bit of caution is necessary when enjoying.

Eel usually isn’t a dish that I would order for myself, but this dried fish like version suits my taste buds just fine. It’s a rather special dish that you’ll only find in Shanghai and you’ll only find it during the winter months so if you are at a Shanghainese food restaurant in the winter make an effort to seek this dish out because it’s a real treat.

I love octopus and this was a surprisingly great dish. It was sweet but not startling sweet like your average sweet and sour dish, and it wasn’t sour it was spicy and balanced nicely against the sweetness.

The chef added sauteed onions which I always love and add great flavor. Also added were mushrooms of varying varieties that are another one of my favorites. Me and my dining partner were both sort of surprised that the octopus in the dish were absolutley huge and you can see that in the picture here to some extent. Normally baby octopus are used and generally fit in your mouth in just a single bite, not the case here each piece was several bites.

As a fan of octopus I had to give this dish a try and I wasn’t disappointed. The flavours were unique and fit my palate quite well. I think most people would like this dish once they get past the slightly odd sight of seeing tentacles in their food, which if you’ve been in China for any amount of time shouldn’t be too hard.

God how I used to hate seafood. Crab would just about make me sick and clams, muscles, oysters were all too disgusting to actually eat. Fish was only OK as long as it wasn’t too “fishy” tasting. But my oh my how things have changed since living in Shanghai. Seafood is amazing. All those little hardshell things like the clams and muscles and oysters are great. Shrimp are to die for, lobster is incredible, and just about every fish imaginable is excellent, cooked or not.

This seafood soy milk hotpot mixture was pretty tasty. Lots of good seafood, though not enough shrimp in my opinion, though one can never really have enough shrimp. The clams were a little chewy though so that was a real drawback, they obviously used cheap seafood as opposed to good seafood. But there was also tofu to be had aplenty and tofu is another one of those things that I’ve come to love in Shanghai.

There wasn’t anything over the top about this soup it just worked out to be a good combination of seafood and tofu. Interestingly the soup was made from soy milk though that didn’t affect the taste one way or the other, it just made the soup look a bit cloudy. I’d really like to see how another restaurant pulls off this dish. I won’t be so inclined to order it again from this place, but I think the idea has potential.

Pure ecstasy on a stick. Nice large whole tiger prawns that have been roasted on a stick while being bathed in sweet and sour sauce composed of tomatoes, pineapples and various other delicious spices in a very Yunnan food style makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The waiter brought out a dozen of them and I could hardly control myself knowing that six of those juicy morsels were mine.

The tangy flavors in the sauce hit the pallet wonderfully as you were tearing their heads off with your teeth. Interestingly enough you just eat the skin rather than spitting that part out. Just chew thoroughly, it ends up being way easier and tastier than de-skinning them. If shrimp is your thing, and you crave sweet and sour, it’s totally impossible to go wrong with this dish.