Chaoshan Raw Pickled Seafood 潮汕生腌海鲜

More traveling eats!  We’re still got more to talk about the absolutely marvelous food we had on our trip to Chaoshan 潮汕 area of Guangdong 廣東.  Oh dear readers, it was so fabulously food fulfilling!  It’s always so lovely to find yourself in a place where everything you eat is delicious, amirite!?

Pssst...check out our other traveling eats posts from this trip, Shantou Street Food 汕頭街頭美食 and Chaoshan Beef Hotpot 潮汕牛肉火鍋.

So this post is about the Chaoshan speciality, Raw Pickled Seafood 潮汕生腌海鲜.  Fresh, fresh seafood pickled in soy sauce, wine and aromatics is a rare delight.  It’s a straightforward process to make, requiring only soy sauce, aromatics, a touch of oil and a bit of time.  The only and important! trick to raw pickled seafood is that the seafood has to be super duper fresh.

We had heard about the famous Chaoshan raw pickled seafood of course.  Oh, how I had drooled away when watching the first season of Flavorful Origins documentary series featuring Chaoshan cuisine.  Omgoshdarnnitall!!  Pickled crabs!  Pickled shrimps!  Pickled every kind of shellfish!  So amazing the raw pickled seafood of Chaoshan!  

Chinese Pickled Sour Mustard Greens 酸菜

Recently we've been obsessed with what the Chinese call '酸菜', directly translated as 'sour vegetable.'  What is meant by 酸菜 is actually mustard greens which have been pickled or brined. It's simple to make with a basic salt brine but wow is the resultant flavor big!

The result of the pickling/brining is a delicately soured pickled vegetable with a soft yet crunchy texture.  It's addictive I tell you, just addictive!  These Homemade Chinese Pickled Sour Mustard Greens 自製酸菜 can be used to stir fry with pork or chicken, eat plain as a relish, or toss in with fish to make the famous (and my favorite) Sichuan Fish Soup with Pickled Mustard Greens 酸菜魚 (recipe coming up next!)

Quick Salt Pickled Cucumbers

Here's a quickie...a lovely little thing to have as bit of a side dish on your dinner or lunch table.  A small dish of something piquant and refreshing to contrast against the main dishes in your meal.  

I discovered this japanese shiozuke style of Quick Salted Pickled Cucumber that is, to my delight, super duper easy and so quick to make that you can just toss it together as you're beginning to cook and have it ready by the time you're putting the meal on the table!

Soy Sauce Marinated Crab 醬油醃蟹

This marinated crab dish is SO AMAZING!  Crazy amazing!  Super duper seafood delight-O with stars bursting in the sky amazing!  

I've been wanting to make it this for ever so long ever since I heard my mother 媽媽 reminisce how her mother made this dish frequently for the family when she was a child growing up in Zhejiang 浙江.  They made their marinated crab quite simply by soaking in rice wine and I remember thinking...interesting...how would that even work?  

Well, that crabby thought floated around in my head for a long time until I recently watched the Netflix food show 'Flavorful Origins' and had my mind totally blown away by...well, everything that food show had to say really.  If you love Chinese food, you've got to check that show out...I think I watched it 3 times in a row!  

Anyways, back to crabs, this Soy Sauce Marinated Crab is inspired by the 'Marinated Crab' episode (drooling!) and the result is raw crab meat and roe completely transformed into something succulent, meltingly tender and mindblowingly TASTY!

Sweet Pickled Purple Quail Eggs

It's time for Halloween, little ghosts and zombies are waiting around every corner, greedy outstretched hands hungry for candy, candy, and more candy!  Instead of packing yet another bag of sweet candy for my little girl to take to school to share with her little goblin and princess friends, I thought to make a more healthy sweet Halloween treat.

I ended up making these quick, easy, fun little snacks, the Sweet Pickled Quail Eggs, naturally colored a lovely ghoulish Halloween purple with the dye from purple sweet potato.  "These are monster eggs," I whispered in a scary voice to my little girl and she loved them, gobbled up 3 in one go and then asked for more and we are making another big batch for school!

Chinese Pickled Yellow Mud Clam 黄泥螺

This rather strange looking tidbit is actually an incredibly delicious and addictive delicacy from the sea.  Or rather from the windswept tidelands of Ningbo 寧波, Zhejiang 浙江 (my 媽媽's home province!)  Only here are found these little mud clams, these innocuous and plain looking burrowers of wet mud that are used to make these famous Chinese Pickled Yellow Mud Clams 黄泥螺.  This Chinese delicacy can be traced all the way back to the Song Dynasty (that's around 1000 years of eating these delicious clams!)

Chinese Pickled Radish 醃櫻桃蘿蔔

I think we have been going a bit pickle crazy recently.  But how can you resist the urge to pickle?  Once you get started and see for yourself how easy and delightfully yummy your own homemade pickles are?  We have made Chinese Pickles  酸瓜 and Chinese Hua Gua Pickles 花瓜 and they are sitting pretty in our little fridge.  Homemade jars of pickle are so gorgeous!  I like to take them out just to admire them.  

The other day I happened upon some cherry radishes lying around and I made this easy Chinese Pickled Radish 醃櫻桃蘿蔔.  Now we also have a beautiful jar of pickled radish in the fridge that we can dip into any time for a tart, crunchy, slightly spicy snack.  And it's a PINK PICKLE! How cool is that?!  My little girl definitely thinks it's super cool.  

Pickled Mackerel - Fish in a Jar

In Hong Kong people don't like the mackerel. "Ah ya, too oily!" I overhear the ladies at the wet market cackle noisily amongst themselves. So whenever fresh mackerel appear they linger long atop the wet market's makeshift styrofoam tables even though they are priced dirt cheap. Shining fresh fish rows, glittering their silver gray stripes under hanging bare bulbs.