Fish maw ✦ ◆

Vessie natatoire séchée

What it is

The same organ, processed another way, gives isinglass, the fish gelatine that has clarified beer and wine for centuries. Graded by species and thickness, top maw reaches prices that have pushed the trade somewhere dangerous: demand for totoaba bladders is what is driving the vaquita porpoise towards extinction in the Gulf of California.

In the kitchen

Blanch the fried kind in water with ginger and Shaoxing to strip its oil, then soak it until springy. Add it to a braise only in the last twenty minutes: held longer it melts into the liquid and thickens it.

Goes with

Chicken Ginger Shaoxing wine Brown crab Dried shiitake (donko) Conpoy Spring onion

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