When the blocks mature into a dark-red or brown colour, they are packaged to be sold.Each block has to be flipped several times during the day.The paste is cut into chunks and compressed into smaller blocks to dry under the sun again. During the sun-drying process, the spreads are flipped every hour to ensure they dry thoroughly. Recipe: Shrimp and Tomato Pasta Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest.After fermentation, workers scoop and flatten the mixture onto flat baskets to be dried under the sun.For the next three to four days, salt is stirred in depending on the weather and humidity.The shrimp is dumped into plastic barrels and covered in sea salt for fermentation.It is then hand-grounded into smaller pieces using a stone grinder.A batch of silver shrimp is rinsed and drained.Despite this rigorous process, there are no exact measurements and methods to making the paste, but the general steps are listed as follows: Experienced workers had the ability to tell if the paste was under-fermented according to its aroma. Humidity and sunlight were vital to the process and workers adjusted the salt level according to the weather however, putting in the wrong amount could ruin an entire batch. While the tiny island was once home to dozens of artisans who produced Hong Kong’s best shrimp paste, every factory now lies derelict and abandoned.ĭrying shrimp paste was often a fight against the sun. The rendition from Ma Wan was churned into large round boulders, from which parts were axed off and sold by the gram at tuck shops. Further along the coastline of Lantau, villagers in Ma Wan followed the steps of their distant relatives in Tai O and produced more than 36,000 kilogrammes of shrimp paste every year. Today, less than a handful of these factories remain. In the 1960s, Tai O was home to 10 shrimp paste factories run by local Tanka families who mastered the art of making shrimp paste with just two ingredients. Out of the three, Tai O and Ma Wa n produced the highest quality and largest industrial output of shrimp paste due to their location near deep bays, which are free from mud particles and other sediments. Shrimp paste matured into a famed speciality found in Tai O, Ma Wan, and Lamma Island. A brief history of Hong Kong’s shrimp paste If for dietary reasons you cannot use it in your food or any other seafood products, the best thing I can think of is to try some normal table salt mixed in.
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