Soft-Braised Shredded Eel
Strips of freshwater eel stir-fried with garlic and braised in a thick, glossy soy sauce until soft, finished with white pepper and a splash of hot oil poured on at the table.
How to eat it
The plate arrives with a mound of chopped garlic and pepper on top, and the waiter pours sizzling oil over it; wait for the hissing to stop, then stir everything together. Eat it with chopsticks in small amounts over rice, as the sauce is thick and strongly seasoned. The eel is boneless, cut into short strips, and should be soft enough to break with the chopsticks, which is what "làn hú" means. It does not taste fishy when fresh. Do not order it in winter, when the eel is thin and the dish is made from frozen stock.
The story behind the dish
Freshwater eel from the paddy ditches and canals of the Taihu plain has been a summer food of the region for centuries, and the delta's cooks developed several ways with it. This is the softer, saucier cousin of the better-known Shanghai and Suzhou eel stir-fries: the strips are cooked longer with more liquid, so they yield rather than snap, and the sauce is thickened until it clings. The hot-oil finish, poured over garlic and pepper at the table, is shared with those dishes. It sits on the menus of older Huzhou restaurants as a standard summer order rather than as a speciality with a story attached.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.
If you have an allergy or something you can't eat, check with the staff before you order.