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Delicious Shells of Edible Calms

Clams, those delicious little shells

In fact, all kinds of small shellfish seafood, in the cooking, there is no too complicated routine, without too many condiments and skills, simple cooking can get the ultimate taste

The weather is getting warmer, and if it was in previous years, the food stalls on the street should have begun to support. Only now, the street is still quite quiet.

Cold dishes, barbecue, small stir-fry, all kinds of small seafood, and a few bottles of beer, it is a cool summer night.

 

Speaking of the small seafood in the food stalls, all kinds of shellfish are definitely a big responsibility: 

Spicy fried clams, salted razor clams, boiled cockles, sea melon seeds in soy sauce. Don’t look at much meat, but the umami flavor contained in them, enough to occupy everyone's taste buds.

 

Although goose and shellfish are delicious, many people feel a headache when ordering. Many food stalls do not have menus, and all kinds of small shells are there: which is the flower clam, which is the clam, who is the scorpion clam, who is the blood clam.

Friends who don't know the difference can only pretend to meditate: Well, give me a portion of this. Ah, give me a dish of that.

 

Delicious Shells of Edible Calms

Before the coming of this summer, we can no longer eat unclearly. 

We must figure out:

What these delicious shellfish are?

 

1. Shellfish, the most intimate seafood

On China's 18,000 kilometers of coastline, small seafood is the most popular. 

Although the small seafood is small and unremarkable in appearance, it is abundant in quantity, and the umami flavor contained in the body is nostalgic.

 

All kinds of shells can be regarded as the main force of small seafood. When they are put on the market in large quantities, they can be cooked, fried, and roasted for only a few yuan per catty. They are the most perfect dishes to go with alcohol.

 

Don't look at the humble shellfish, but besides sodium glutamate, it also contains sodium succinate. The interaction of various flavor substances makes the small shells have a complex and colorful umami taste.

 

Scallops, oysters, sea rainbows, clams, cockles, razor clams... these common shellfish are not valuable things, but they bring great satisfaction to our taste buds.


Scallops, oysters, and sea rainbows have all been specifically introduced in previous articles. You can click on the following titles to view:


If scallops don’t “run off”, how many kinds of delicacies can it become?

Mussels, sea rainbow, mussels, mussels. Who are they?

 

Are oysters and oysters the same thing? What kind of oyster is considered top quality?

Today I will specifically talk about clams, clams, razor clams, etc. These small and delicious shells.

 

2. Clams species of Clamidae

Clams, can be regarded as the collective name of some species of Clamidae and Clamidae of the order Bivalvia.


There are many names for clams. In Mandarin, we usually pronounce it as clam (gě lì), and in Shandong it is called gala (gá la), while in Dalian, it is collectively called clam (xiǎn e).

 

However, these are not its official names. According to the correct pronunciation, clams should be pronounced (gé lí). But you have to really go to the food stall and shout: 

Fried me a plate of clams (gé lí), it's strange that the boss doesn't think you are crazy.

 

According to the Jiaodong Peninsula: 

Cold water oysters and hot clams. When the sea is cold, it is sea oysters, which is the most plump season for oysters. 

In summer, when the sea heats up, it is time to eat clams.

There are many types of clams, we often eat clams, clams, white clams and so on.


Flower Clam

The flower clam, also known as the flower beetle, the flower clam, and the flower clam, is actually called the Philippine clam, which comes from the genus Clam of the Clam family.

Clams mostly live in the sand on the bottom of the shallow sea, so there is a lot of sand in the water pipes. 

If fresh clams are picked up and cooked directly, they will have some teeth. Generally, they must be soaked in salt water and spit out sand.

 

The clam cooking is very diverse, boiled in white water, fried with spicy sauce, grilled, and made soup.

Moreover, its body is full of salty and fresh flavor, so there is no need to add salt for cooking.

 

Stir-fried clams are the most common cooking method at night markets. But the most authentic way to eat clams is to roast them.


Roasted yellow clams

A few years ago, having a barbecue in Dalian will give you a carbon stove so that you can heat it yourself and grill it to your favorite texture and taste. At this time, I will go to the nearby market and buy three or four catties of clams for 10 yuan.

 

Put a grill on the stove, put a few clams on top, and when they are baked until they reach the opening, take them and swallow them with the juice and meat. Although it is very hot, it is still the most original flavor.

 

Tin foil sixtieth fans

The tin foil sixtieth fans who have become popular in recent years actually use tin foil to wrap the umami juice inside the clams as much as possible, and then slowly boil them into the fans, which is similar to scallop fans.


Clam Oil

Clams are relatively expensive clams, and they are called "the best fresh in the world". The outer shell is slightly triangular, with a relatively large body, and the largest diameter can reach 5 cm. 

Clam oil, an ancient skin care product, used large clam shells as a container.


Clam stew

Clams are distributed along the coast of China, and the most famous ones are from Nantong, Jiangsu. In addition to stir-fry, clams stewed with eggs, clam hoof casserole, tofu skin clam rolls, scallion clams... are all well-known dishes. 


White clams

White clams, the scientific name four-cornered clams, are small in size and have a relatively high bulge. They are usually boiled or steamed in white water.

 

Oil Clam

Oil clam, the scientific name of Paphia undulatus, has a pattern on the shell, and the surface is relatively smooth, which looks shiny and shiny, perhaps because of the word "oil" in the name. 

In Sanya and other places, the oil clam is also called "mango snail", but it is neither like mango nor snail.

 

In China, oil clams are common in southern coastal areas such as Taiwan, Fujian, and Guangdong. Oiled clams can be cooked in soup or fried. The best combination of fried oiled clams is the nine-story tower.


Boiled clams in salt water

In the southern Fujian region where soy sauce and water are all seafood, soy sauce and water are mixed to enhance the taste just right and lift the umami taste. Soy sauce, water and oil clams are the most common, but also the most touching and delicious.

 

Huang Clam

Yellow clam, the scientific name of green willow clam, is produced in the shallow waters of the Yellow Sea. The most famous one is Dandong yellow clam. Its shell is yellow, and its flesh is also yellow.

 

The yellow clams are bigger and thicker, so they are also called fat clams. The yellow clams are excellent for blanching, sautéing, and grilling. There is no need to add more seasonings to destroy its original flavor.

 

Aoyagi Sashimi

In addition, bird shells, Xi Shi Tongue, sea melon seeds are all delicacies that you usually eat more or less.

 

When buying clams, pay attention, as long as your little tongue is still moving and spraying water, you are alive. However, the price of this item is not expensive, and the quantity you buy each time is not small. 

It is too hard to pick one by one. It is inevitable that you will encounter a few dead clams that do not open your mouth each time.

 

Clams to the sand is more troublesome. Use a large basin, put clams, pour salt water (1 liter of water and 30 grams of salt), add a few drops of sesame oil or peanut oil, keep it for a few hours, you can spit clean sand.

 

3. Clam

Clams are called clams in many places. Flower clams are flower clams and white clams are white clams. Of course, yellow clams are now used to be called clams.

However, true clams actually have something else, which generally refers to organisms under the family Clamidae.

 

River Clam

River clams, also known as Asian clams and Taiwan clams, are widely distributed in rivers, lakes, ponds and ditches in China. Yes, clams are not seafood, but a kind of river fresh.

 

There are many subspecies of river clams. For example, yellow sand clams have golden shells, and the better the water quality they live in, the yellower the shells; while those that grow in silt are called mud clams with black shells.

 

Generally speaking, yellow sand clams taste better than mud clams, and yellow sand clams with purple inner shell are the top grade among river clams.

 

Steamed yellow sand clams

The first way to eat river clams is to cook soup. In southern Fujian, many people use river clams and dried radish to cook soup in summer. The other is cold sauce. 

After the river clams are blanched, they take the meat and add soy sauce, green onions and garlic. Nothing will be changed again.

 

River Clam Soup

In Japan, there are Yamato Clam, Real Clam, and Seta Clam. Yamato clams grow at the confluence of salt and fresh water. The other two are freshwater creatures. They are also eaten by the Japanese at different times.

 

4. cockles

Cockles, a creature belonging to the superfamily of the subclass Pteropidae, the order Clamidae.

 

In terms of appearance, the cockles are easier to identify. Its shell is thicker and strong, making it difficult to break it with bare hands, and there are obvious lines or fluff on the surface of the shell.

 

Cockles, a shellfish, are distributed along the coast of China, with the largest production in Liaoning and Shandong. We often eat three kinds of cockles-cockles, cockles, and cockles.

 

Clams

Hairy clams are commonly known as hairy clams and hairy clams. The "Fenghua Shaking Clam" produced in Ningbo is the most famous.

 

When the locals in Ningbo eat the cockles, they take the thick lead wire baskets, put the cockles in them, and shake the baskets repeatedly in the boiling water pot until the cockles are cooked, hence the name "shaking cockles".


Mixed cockles

Yuan Mei's "Suiyuan Food List" also recorded several ways to eat cockles: "There are three ways to eat cockles: 

  1. Spray half-cooked with hot water, remove cover, add wine, and get drunk with autumn oil
  2. Boil them with chicken soup

It can be used to cover the soup; or the whole cover can be used to make soup, but it is better to start quickly, and the meat will dry up later."

However, half-cooked cockles once caused a memorable outbreak of hepatitis A in Shanghai in 1988.


Due to environmental pollution in the production area of ​​the cockles, the cockles were infected with bacillary dysentery, and then the hepatitis A virus appeared, which eventually caused panic everywhere in Shanghai in just two months, the isatis were out of stock, and they did not dare to touch the stair railing.

More than 310,000 people were infected with hepatitis A , 31 of them died.

 

To this day, in Shanghai's "Notice on Prohibiting the Production and Operation of Food Varieties", the name of the cockles is listed, and sales are banned throughout the year.

 

Blood cockles

Mud cockles, commonly known as blood cockles, are more common in the south. Pickled raw or boiled are common ways to eat. In southern Fujian, blood cockles are also one of the essential delicacies on New Year's Eve dinner.

 

The Taste of Laoguang

When Wang Zengqi visited Fujian, he also ate blood cockles and wrote: "I eat cockles without any condiments, just peel them into their mouths. I don’t eat a lot of vegetables, each is just a few. Taste the taste, but if you eat pelt cockles, you have a great appetite. 

A large plate of pelt cockles told me to eat a small half by myself. 

The clam shells in front of me piled up into a small mound, which is not enough. Eating pelt cockles and drinking hot yellow wine are rare in life. Toast Thank you Master, saying: 'This is called seafood!'"


In addition to the Chinese, Koreans also love cockles. In the Korean drama "Please answer 1988", Deshan’s father likes to eat the clams made by his wife. 

He once said that he could not eat meat, but he would eat the clams made by Li Yihua every day. Later he paid off his debts at Deshan’s house Later, Li Yihua made a large plate and placed it on the table.

Korean food and broadcasters often eat cold cockles, bibimbap and so on.


Quei Clam

Kui clams, also called blood shells, Japanese call it red shells. Compared with larval cockles and blood cockles, ark shells are larger and mainly grow in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea.

 

In Japan, ark shells are often used to make sashimi or sushi. The essence of red shell sashimi lies in its plump feet. 

After it is sliced ​​into thin slices, it is placed in the refrigerator for about five minutes and served with the prepared horseradish. The color is yellow and red, which is extremely pleasing to the eye.

 

Aka shell sashimi

However, traditional Chinese food is still accustomed to being cooked. Stir-fried, stir-fried, simmered, or mixed can be done, but the cooker is very demanding, and after a while, you can’t bite.

 

These three types of cockles are relatively easy to distinguish. The ark shells are relatively large. The biggest difference between larvae and blood cockles is the color of the meat and juice.

 

5. Clam

Razor clams are distributed along the north and south coasts of China and can be eaten basically all year round.

 

The "Ninghai County Chronicles" of the Qing Dynasty recorded: "Clams and mussels belong to the genus of razor clams, which are called razor clams by their field species. They are narrow and long like fingers. They are called Xishi Tongue and are beautiful."

 

The razor clams we usually eat can be broadly divided into short, thick and round "razor clams" and slender and straight "razor clams".

 

Clamshell

The meat of razor clams is fat and tender and can be steamed or stir-fried. In Zhejiang and Fujian, there is a method called "inverted razor clam", which is to put the razor clams in a bowl next to each other, sprinkle a layer of pickles and ginger on top, and then steam for 10 minutes, sprinkle with chopped green onion, and it will be out of the pot.

 

Salt baked razor clams

Salt-baked razor razor is also a common practice. Slightly pickle the razor razor with seasoning, drain the water, stir-fry the coarse salt and spices, and finally place the razor on the coarse salt. Use the temperature of the salt to cook the razor.

 

There are generally two types of razor clams that we usually eat, large and long razor clams. The characteristics are in the name, the big razor clam is "big", and the long razor clam is "long".

 

Long Razor Clam

The biggest feature of razor clams is that it has a thin shell, which is easy to break. So many people eat long razor clams by sucking.

 

For razor clams, steaming or soy sauce water is enough to stimulate the umami taste.

 

In fact, all kinds of small shellfish seafood, in the cooking, there is no too complicated routines, without too many condiments and skills, simple cooking can get the ultimate taste.


Technically / medically reviewed by:

Name: Ramona Khan







Education: Master of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics

Experience: 11 Years of experience as a nutritionist / dietician



[ S H A R E in public interest > > 

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