"Fish-flavored" dishes have a salty, sweet, sour, and spicy taste.Fresh ginger,scallions, and garlic are flavorful."Fish-flavored"dishes are unique to Sichuan cuisine.It is named "fish flavor" because it originates from a distinctive fish cooking method in the countryside of Sichuan."Fish flavor" does not actually use any fish but has a rich, fresh fish taste and is regarded as an exquisite delicacy of Sichuan cuisine.

Because fish can be very pungent, people in Sichuan love to eat them. To reduce the smelliness, they add pickled vegetables like pickled chili peppers,and pickled ginger, as well as a little bit of other pickled vegetables like green cabbage.Later, chefs formalized this method for cooking fish and some regions even established it as a flavor type called "pickled vegetable flavor".From the base of "pickled vegetable flavor", by further refining, it evolved into a flavor profile made solely from pickled chili peppers,combined with Sichuan salt,sugar,soy sauce,maltose,vinegar,monosodium glutamate (MSG),ginger,scallions, and garlic."Fish flavor" is created by first stir-frying the pickled chili peppers in oil until fragrant and colored. Then add ginger and garlic to stir-fry, quickly pour in soy sauce,maltose,

vinegar, sugar, MSG, and pre-mixed liquid, reduce to a bright luster, then add scallions, mix evenly, and serve.

"Fish flavor" is characterized by the color change of pickled chili peppers after cooking, as well as the combined flavors of saltiness,sweetness,sourness,and spiciness from the pickled chili peppers. The distinctive aroma released during high-temperature stir-frying also adds to this unique flavor."Fish-flavored" dishes are versatile and can be applied to poultry, livestock, vegetables,

eggs,etc., both for hot or cold dishes, although preparation methods differ slightly between them.For "fish flavored" cold dishes, the same ingredients can be used but there are two preparation methods: one involves mixing all seasonings into a marinade without cooking. Vinegar should be less than in hot dishes due to its evaporation when heated. The other method is to mix pickled chili peppers,ginger,and garlic, then quickly stir-fry with very hot oil. After cooling, add soy sauce, MSG, sugar, and vinegar into the bowl containing the seasonings and use them as a marinade or pour over pre-prepared dishes."Fish flavor" in Sichuan cuisine has two seasoning methods: one uses Sichuan salt,pickled chili peppers,ginger,scallions, garlic, soy sauce,maltose,vinegar, and MSG. The other method involves using Doubanjiang (Sichuan chili paste),soy sauce,maltose,MSG, vinegar, ginger, scallions, and garlic.