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$3.50
The special recipe version of Old Fisherman Roasted Eel that won the Gold Medal at the National Food Tasting Association. This tin comes packed with fermented black beans.
Mix your tinned eel into a bowl of rice and top with freshly sliced scallions and a bit of Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp and you’ll be hooked.
100g (3.5 oz) tin
Pictured with pickled cucumber and onions.
In stock
Ingredients: Conger Eel, Water, Fermented Beans, Sugar, Soy Sauce (Water, Soy Bean, Wheat, Salt, Sugar), Capsicum, Vinegar, BBQ Powder (Dry of Shallot, Sesame, Coconut Powder, Ginger Powder, Garlic, Shrimp, Chili Powder, Salt, Anise, Cinnamon, Fennel, Pepper Powder), Mirin, Soybean Oil, Licorice Powder, Garlic Powder, Capsicum Powder, Bonito Powder, Cinnamon Powder, Herbs Powder, Pepper Powder, Monosodium Glutamate.
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Hream McDan (verified owner) –
Absolutely great, more on that later. Should you buy this tin or the other one that isn’t fully oval? Well, it’s apparently a slightly different recipe so there’s that … but this one does NOT have a pull tab. It’s extraordinarily challenging to get open with a standard can opener, so for that reason alone you should consider trying the other one first if you don’t want to battle that challenge.
With that said, I *possibly* liked this one more than the version in the other tin? I had the other one weeks ago, so clearly this could totally be the “won a Gold Medal” placebo talking. Regardless, both cans are flippin’ amazing. I didn’t detect any heat at all in this tin, not even a tiny bit despite thinking the other version had a hint of it. The black bean sauce is a mildly sweet BBQ sauce with lots of tasty beans in the can. Texture is the same as other Old Fisherman cans, it’s a barely-candied fish jerky that isn’t soft or flaky but also isn’t too firm and isn’t too dry. I ate this at room temp straight out of the can but added some chili crisp as Dan recommended – wow, it took it up another half notch by doing so. I’ll return to the other tin style on my next order just because it’s quite hard to open this one up, but honestly, after having this again … I think the fermented black beans tin is my favorite of all Old Fisherman — if you add in chili crisp. Without it, then mayyyybe the black pepper edges this out for the top spot but it’s really close.
TLDR; Buy this or the pull tab version. Set your expectations to delicious bbq eel jerky with beans, add some spice (chili crisp!) towards your personal preference. It’s absolutely awesome eel for a super low price.
Christopher Therrien (verified owner) –
Thanks to tinned fish aficionado, Mathew Carslon, on YouTube I’ve been introduced to the wonders of this Taiwanese product. In the video, Mathew seemed slightly put-off by the texture of the fish as it’s firm and a bit chewy. I find it similar to smoked salmon jerky, yet not quite as tough. It can be easily flaked into smaller pieces with a fork or chopsticks. The pieces are not uniform, not much to look at really, which is why I chopped the contents of the can into smaller uniform chunks to be slightly warmed in a pan and served over a bed of white “Chinese restaurant rice” (taken from the Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, Hensperger/Kaufmann pg. 34). I guess any style of rice would do, but this is what I used and it worked well for me. I also took Dan’s online suggestion of chopped scallions and a healthy dose of chili crisp. I used Laoganma “Old Grandmother” Spicy Chili Crisp which I happened to have on hand. This is the one RTG also carries and recommends, but I’ve been using this on my Dan Dan Noodle recipe for years.
I find it amusing that we have two ingredients: “Old Fisherman” and “Old Grandma” brought together with just rice and scallions to make such a delicious dish. I could just imagine the pair, sitting together under a thatched veranda on a dock overlooking a bay eating bowls of this stuff.
The product is also delicious right out of the can, no bones detected,. Don’t let the Alien appearance (à la H. R. Giger) put you off.
(Please note: this tin does not have a convenient pull-tab and needs an opener to get the job done.)