Species sheet · The Edible River
Mandarin fish
The squirrel fish of Chinese banquets.
- Squirrel fish (song shu gui yu): scored in a crosshatch, fried and glazed sweet and sour
- Steamed with ginger and soy sauce
- Fermented then braised, Anhui style (chou gui yu)
- In French
- Poisson mandarin
- Scientific name
- Siniperca chuatsi
- In the water
- A predator of China's lakes and rivers, from the Yangtze to the Amur. It hunts by ambush near the bottom, hidden among weeds and stones.
- Season & buying
- Best in spring; farmed all year in China, it is sold live in the big markets.
- Common length
- ~35 cm
- How to identify it
- Deep, stocky body, golden brown mottled with dark blotches
Large mouth with a jutting lower jaw
Long dorsal fin bristling with spines
On the plate
White, fine, delicate flesh with no small bones and a mild taste.
Avoid: Handling it carelessly: the dorsal spines sting and the wound swells; snip them off with scissors before gutting it.
“Before Xisai Mountain the egrets fly, peach blossoms drift on the stream and the mandarin fish are fat”: a poem by Zhang Zhihe, eighth century.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
