THE best time of year to savor eel has begun. For the third consecutive year, the award-laden Fujian cuisine restaurant Putien is rolling out its signature Putien Eel Festival. With both acclaimed classic dishes and creative new options, this year’s eel festival is without doubt another feast for eel lovers.

A popular ingredient in Asian cuisines, the eel is widely appreciated for its smooth, tender meat and fresh, sweet flavors. Among the major eel species, the Japanese eel is highly sought after for their superb quality. At Putien Eel Festival, all the eels used are export-grade Japanese eels from Shunde City, Guangdong Province, a place hailed as “the hometown of eels in China.”

A must-try dish of this year’s eel festival is fresh eel cooked in spring water, which is a good embodiment of Fujian cuisine’s emphasis on fresh ingredients. A live eel is braised in hot water for 10 seconds and taken out from the water to have the membrane on its skin and the bones removed. The fish then is sliced and, together with goji berries and ginger slices, boiled in spring water from the Wuyi Mountain National Natural Reserve in Putian, a city in Fujian Province where the restaurant derived its name. The addition of condiments is minimal in order to retain the original flavors of the eel and the delicate freshness of the soup.

For gourmets who prefer eel dishes with richer flavors, the festival has plenty to offer. Crispy eel in rice wine sauce, a traditional Fujian cuisine cooked by coating fried eel fillets with traditional red rice wine sourced from Fujian, is crispy on the outside, tender on the inside and infused with the fragrance of rice wine. Baked eel coated with garlic and Puning bean sauce, a winner at the eatery’s 2020 eel cooking competition, is a success at maximizing the umami and tenderness of the eel. Feel like trying something new and innovative? Steamed eel in garlic and black bean sauce manages to strike a balance between the rich flavors of the bean sauce and the freshness of the eel, and may be a good choice.(Yu Yuanfan)