Cold-Sauce Eel (Sichuan Style)
Stir-fry the eel until crisp and blistered, then add the prepared milk-broth sauce and reduce until fully absorbed. The flavor is rich with a lingering sweetness.
Ingredients
Eel fillets (from 750 g live eel after filleting)
500 g
Rapeseed oil
150 g
Sugar
20 g
Vinegar
25 g
Soy sauce
20 g
Scallion segments
50 g
Ginger slices
20 g
Sichuan peppercorns
30
Dried chili peppers (stemmed, deseeded, cut into short segments)
25 g
Sichuan salt
12 g
Milk broth
100 g
Chili oil (drizzled at serving)
10 g
Instructions
1
Pre-treatment
Select live eels and place them in clear water with a small amount of salt for 2 hours so they expel impurities and the surface mud and sand is washed away.
2
Slaughtering
Use a nail to pin the eel through the eye onto a cutting board, slice along the back, remove the head and slime, scrape out all the innards, wipe away blood, and chop into 4.5 cm long segments.
3
Mixing the sauce
Combine the vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce in a bowl.
4
Stir-frying
Place the wok over high heat, add the rapeseed oil and heat until 80% hot, add the eel fillets and stir-fry, season with Sichuan salt to taste, and stir-fry until puffed and crispy, then remove from the wok.
5
Cooking and reducing
Leave the remaining oil in the wok, add the Sichuan peppercorns and dried chili segments; when they turn reddish-brown, add the ginger slices and scallion segments. Pour in the bowl sauce and briefly cook, add the milk broth and bring to a boil, add the eel and continuously toss, reduce until the sauce is fully absorbed and oil surfaces, then remove from the wok.
6
Drizzling chili oil
Transfer to a serving bowl, cover and let sit for 10 minutes, then drizzle with chili oil before serving.
