The miracle of fish paste

Few people have the time or the skill to make their own fish paste anymore and over-fished seas mean that varieties like bream or mackerel are now priced beyond reach.

Most commercial fish paste are now made with a mixed variety of fish such as hairtail and eel, with various additives to make them taste "good".

In Shunde, Guangdong province, they use farmed freshwater fish for fish paste. The grass carp, reared in the mulberry-fringed ponds, is a typically bony fish full of y-shaped fine bones.

But Shunde chefs have long learned to harness the fish with their cooking skills, making a fish paste that they turn into delicious dishes and snacks.

The fish meat is seasoned heavily, and aged citrus peel is added to banish the muddy taste of freshwater fish. One of the most famous dishes on the Cantonese dim sum table is carp meatballs, deep fried and served with a wine-pickled clam sauce.

Another wonderful fish paste dish is a fish, deboned but with the skin intact. The meat is minced and then stuffed back into the skin. The stuffed fish is then carefully deep-fried and then served whole in the perfect showcase of culinary artifice.

That is only one example of how the Chinese chefs have honed their skills through the ages using one of their favorite ingredients - fish paste.