"Brother Fisherman, how do you think trawl nets catch these sunfish? Do they also eat anchovies?"
"Look at that ocean sunfish! It must weigh at least three or four hundred pounds. How many anchovies would it have to eat to fill its stomach?"
"No, Shuangzi, you forgot something. Didn't you notice that the sunfish from earlier was already eaten by someone else?"
Look at that sunfish's back; its wounds have turned white from being soaked in seawater. I don't know if it will survive.
"Whether they survive or not doesn't really concern us. As for ocean sunfish, well, their very existence is pretty much irrelevant; they're the kind of creatures that love to just give up."
Other marine life isn't interested in them either. Unless they're starving, nobody would eat them; the anchovies we caught are much more useful.
......
Bai Yu and his three companions chatted as they cleaned the barnacles.
There were some unexpected incidents in the two nets of anchovies. In addition to sea turtles and sunfish, many other sea fish were also caught along with the anchovies.
The most numerous of these is a type of sea bream called pine sea bream. If you look at it, it looks a bit like our black sea bream and yellowfin sea bream, except that it is gray in color.
In addition, the size of the pine seabream is also much larger. In our domestic waters, wild black seabream are generally less than two pounds, and those over two pounds are very rare.
Yellowfin seabream are even smaller, with most weighing less than a pound, and those weighing more than a pound are rarely seen.
But the pine sea bream were different. Bai Yu and his crew caught quite a few pine sea bream in their two nets. The largest one weighed eleven or twelve pounds. These big ones were left in the fish unloading hole.
The fishermen here don't really know much about pine sea bream; they only know that it's a type of sea bream.
However, for fishermen, as long as the boat owner is willing, they can eat whatever fish they catch.
Bai Yu was like that; he didn't know if the pine sea bream was valuable or not, but he wanted to try it since he had never eaten it before.
After cleaning the two trawl nets, he took four sea bream and a bowl of anchovies and headed to the kitchen.
The chef cooked four sea bream for lunch, and the other dish of anchovies was prepared by Bai Yu to be fried into small fish.
It's actually very convenient to make fried small fish with this kind of sea fish. Unlike freshwater fish, you don't have to let the fish spit out the mud and sand in their stomachs before frying.
Anchovies don't need to, as they are not bottom-dwelling fish, and their main food is plankton in the ocean, making their bodies relatively clean.
Bai Yu brought a basin of anchovies weighing over ten pounds to the kitchen. He first greeted the two chefs in the kitchen, and then he prepared to fry the small fish.
Despite being the company's boss, Bai Yu's chefs on the Yu Xue No. 15 fishing boat were all his father's fellow apprentices.
In other words, the chefs on these sixteen fishing boats (including the Yuxue) were all Bai Yu's elders, so he had to greet his elders when he got to the kitchen.
Bai Yu then prepared to make fried small fish. The fried small fish he made was a simplified version that did not require any prior preparation.
These small fish were just caught from the sea, so they were definitely fresh. All he had to do was wash the anchovies a few times to make sure there was no slime on their surface.
As for gutting them, that can be skipped. These anchovies are far too small; if every single one of them needed to be gutted, it wouldn't be worth it.
Even if he worked all day, he couldn't clean all these ten-odd kilograms of anchovies.
After cleaning all the anchovies, he can heat the oil in a wok. Once the oil reaches 60% of its maximum temperature, he can pour all the anchovies in.
The pots on the fishing boats are all large, and frying several kilograms of small fish at once is no problem at all. This way, they can be put into the oil together and taken out of the oil together.
As for preparing batter and frying powder, these are unnecessary. Baiyu makes fried anchovies without adding anything, and marinating is not required.
Once the anchovies have been fried until the moisture has evaporated and the skin has turned golden brown, they can be removed from the oil and drained.
Then, you need to fry them again. This time, you can raise the oil temperature and put all the anchovies in. When the anchovies turn a slightly golden brown color, you can take them out.
This completes the preparation of plain fried anchovies. Plain fried anchovies have no flavor other than being fragrant.
However, it is this one kind of fragrance, a unique flavor that many ingredients do not have, a flavor that is irresistible.
However, if you don't want the original flavor, you can mix it with some seasonings.
For example, Bai Yu really likes the two flavors of spicy and salt and pepper. Then he took a slightly smaller pot and heated it up again.
Then add a little oil, then put half of the fried anchovies in, and then add the prepared seasonings.
The main reason Bai Yu wanted to change the pot was that the previous pot was too big, making it difficult for her to handle.
After switching to a smaller pot, I put in the spicy seasoning, then grabbed the pot handle and lifted it up so that the seasoning could coat each anchovy evenly.
After the first batch of anchovies was cooked, the remaining anchovies were added, this time with salt and pepper seasoning.
Use the same method to weigh it, allowing the seasonings and anchovies to combine perfectly.
Soon, more than ten kilograms of anchovies were transformed into two kinds of fried anchovies!
Bai Yu then took two out of the spicy anchovy and stuffed them into his mouth. With one bite, they were crunchy, and the unique aroma of fried small fish filled his mouth.
"Hmm, not bad, not bad at all. Fried anchovies are quite delicious, they smell really good!"
As Bai Yu spoke, he grabbed a handful of fried small fish from the dish before leaving the kitchen.
He didn't intend to eat the little fish all by himself; he planned to use it as a snack for lunch. He just wanted to catch some to try, just to have a little treat.
If he wants to eat the rest, there will be plenty for him to eat at lunchtime.
Bai Yu quickly returned to the deck and shared some of the fried anchovies he had taken out with Wang Hai and the other two.
All three of them agreed on the fried anchovy, summarizing it in two words: "So delicious!"
It's only 11:30 a.m., and there's still half an hour before lunch. If they just hang in there a little longer, they'll be able to go to the restaurant for lunch.
Half an hour really flew by, and then the lunch bell rang, signaling it was time to eat lunch!
The lunch bell did ring, but Bai Yu and the others couldn't go to the restaurant for lunch yet because the second round of trawling had already begun, and they had to get to work.
Since they were planning to experience fishing in Peru, there's no reason for them to work halfway through and then go eat. They wouldn't do something like that.
So even though the dinner bell rang and Bai Yu and the other three were already hungry, they still stayed on the deck, doing whatever they could.
Even if there's nothing to do, they'll stay on the deck, since nobody knows what surprises might be hidden in that fishing net.
If there's a big fish hidden inside, and it happens to slip out when there aren't many people on the deck, blocking the fish unloading port, then it will be a real problem, and all the anchovies in the net will have to be dumped onto the deck.
Fortunately, the process wasn't too long; Bai Yu and his group were only half an hour later than the others, and then they went to the restaurant for dinner.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Bai Yu found that there wasn't much of the fried anchovy he had made left; it was quite popular.
However, the way it was popular was a little off. It wasn't eaten as a dish, but rather the crew would take some fried anchovies as a snack after lunch.
Whether you're looking to aid digestion after a meal or enjoy a snack with tea, this fried anchovy snack is a great choice.
...........
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