I happened to see this while I was shopping today at the San Diego Mitsuwa Japanese market, where I had gone in pursuit of tofu & shirataki noodles. This isn’t either one of those, though.
Sorry for the poor picture quality. I only had my camera phone with me, and it looks like I got it a little too close to the camera.
Answer to what the mystery food is tomorrow.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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Bean sprouts!
Well, judging by the label, it’s dried white baite, although Google seems to think it ought to be “whitebait” instead. (;
Bait. Dried, white, *expensive* bait. Bogus, bogus, bogus.
At $28 a pound, it should be gold.
Gagh. That would explain the price, but it appears to have died in transit and so won’t be very good, because, as everyone knows, gagh is best served live.
Oh, they’re little fishies. I think I’ve had them before, in soup. They look like worms but have little black eyes.
Rats. I was going to guess gagh also.
Been there. Done that. Not bad.
Eel fry. I’ve had ’em. Salty.
All eel prepared a la mode Japonaise tastes good, by the way.
Clearly anorexic albino mushrooms. Case closed.
No no no, AmPapist– anorexic albino assassin mushrooms.
Anchovies?
whatever it is, it will probably be good sauted in olive oil, white wine, and garlic (with those mushrooms, of course!)
In Asian cuisine, dried whitebait as small as pictured is often deep fried and served as a crisp accompaniment to rice.
Before frying, make sure they are completely dry, as moisture during storage can cause them to be tough when fried instead of light and crisp.
Fry a few as a test first and if they are not crisp when cool, dry the unfried fish in the oven at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes and allow to cool. Put them into a wire sieve and shake over a sink to loosen and get rid of any small particles as these will burn when the fish are fried.
Drop by handfuls into hot oil, fry for a few minutes until golden, and drain on paper towels.
http://www.dljs.com/en/jinshan1/hw/mtyg.jpg
Gosh, that photo takes me back. I haven’t eaten whitebait since I was a child. Fr Stephanos is correct, that is the way I remember my father cooking them. Remember to squeeze lemon over them.
I was going to say shredded eel. so I guess I wasn’t too far off.
Kellogg’s Shredded Eel. Great with milk!
Way overpriced ramen noodles.
It’s dried whitebait smelt (small fish). See http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/kopec/tr9/html/sp-whitebait-smelt.html
Ramen?
Eugh!
Are you going to eat it or use it to catch fish?
“Kellogg’s Shredded Eel. Great with milk!”
I’ll wait for the Frosted Mini Shredded Eel, thanks. I never know what to do with thos big cakes of eel. Mini ones are bite-sized, which is always a bonus!
Another way to eat them is to finely grate daikon (large white radish), sprinkle the fish over it and add a little bit of soy sauce. My father-in-law thought this to be very good for the digestion. A little bit goes a long way.
As folks were quick to figure out, the mystery food is indeed dried whitebait, though the label in the picture misspells this as “dried white baite.”
Whitebait are, it turns out, the young of a number of different species of fish, depending on where in the world you buy them (places include the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and China).
They are served in a variety of ways, including–in New Zealand–using them iun omelettes.
More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitebait
Personally, I still think bait should be used to catch fish and not as a meal in itself.
“Personally, I still think bait should be used to catch fish and not as a meal in itself.”
Amen!
*** useless bit of trivia***
Did you know (well of course you don’t, you couldn’t) that I once caught 29 fish when I went fishing with my Dad as a child?!
Jimmy,
Have you gone to The Noodle House on Convoy? A bowl of Udon (complete with the boiled egg and shitake mushroom) with a few drops of that hot pepper oil…some gyoza…my mouth is watering.
Used to be a weekly lunch haunt for my office.
*brightens* They sell real Japanese food in San Diego? I may survive when I go home!
But do they have green tea ice cream? (My addiction.)