Braised eel with cucumber

Overview

When I was a child, my mother-in-law (called grandma in the north) often made this dish. The spicy and fragrant taste in my memory became clearer many years after my mother-in-law passed away. My mother-in-law is a native of Yuzhong District, Chongqing. This dish should be regarded as the originator of Sichuan-style Jianghu cuisine.

Tags

• hot dishes
• chicken essence
• cucumber
• edible oil
• millet pepper
• pickled ginger
• pickled pepper
• white sugar
• zanthoxylum bungeanum
• eel
• garlic
• glutinous rice
• green onions
• salt

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 Weigh 3 taels of live eel per catty, kill it, cut into sections and wash, leaving about 8-9 taels.

   

2. 2 Peel the cucumber, remove the head, and cut into strips of the same length as the eel.

   

3. 3 Prepare the ingredients, chop the pickled ginger and pickled pepper into pieces, slice the garlic cloves, cut the millet pepper into small sections diagonally, cut the shallot into chopped green onions and Sichuan peppercorns.

   

4. 4 Heat oil in a wok, add peppercorns and garlic cloves and stir-fry until fragrant.

   

5. 5 Add eel, add a small amount of mash water and a little salt, and cook over medium heat.

   

6. 6 Wait until the eel segments become soft, then remove from the pot and set aside.

   

7. 7 Put a little oil in the pot, add millet pepper, pickled ginger, pickled pepper, fermented glutinous rice (put both rice and wine) and stir-fry until fragrant.

   

8. 8 Add cucumber, add water or stock, stir-fry evenly, and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

   

9. 9 Add the fried eel and continue cooking.

   

10. 10 Cook until the cucumber turns yellow and becomes soft, then add salt, sugar and chicken essence to taste.

    

11. 11 Remove from the pot, put on a plate, sprinkle with chopped green onion, and done.