Fish 5: Dark Sleeper (土步魚)

In Hangzhou, dark sleepers¹ are highly prized. Yet people in Jinling² consider them worthless, and look upon them as tiger-headed snakes: with grotesque amusement. Its flesh is very tender and soft, and it can be pan-fried, boiled, or steamed. It can also be cooked with picked mustard³ as a remarkable delicate and delicious geng.

土步魚
杭州以土步魚為上品。而金陵人賤之，目為虎頭蛇，可發一笑。肉最鬆嫩。煎之、煮之、蒸之俱可。加醃芥作湯、作羹尤鮮。

Notes:
¹Known in Chinese as “walking-on-ground fish”, the dark sleeper (Odontobutis obscura) is from the suborder containing gobies, many of which have an affinity to shallow river and lake shores. In fact, the mudskippers belong to it.  This rather large species of goby-like fish is known by its rather sinister sounding dormant monster/undercover spy name because of its ability to camouflage itself, changing its colour to a blackish blue hue to avoid predation.

²Jinling is the old name for Nanjing.

³Yanjie (醃芥) translates to marinated mustard, but considering the way it’s used in other recipes of the Suiyuan Shidan this is most likely the fermented and pickled mustards, known as suan cai (酸菜, “sour vegetable”). As such, it is better translated as pickled mustard. Suancai Yu (酸菜魚), is actually a relatively common method for preparing fish hroughout China.