Fish paste refers to fish which has been chemically broken down by a fermentation process until it reaches the consistency of a soft creamy purée or paste. Alternatively it refers to cooked fish which has been physically broken down by pounding, grinding, pressing, mincing, blending, and/or sieving, until it reaches the consistency of paste. The term can be applied also to shellfish pastes, such as shrimp paste or crab paste.
Fish paste is used as a condiment or seasoning to add flavour added to food, or in some cases to complement a dish. Generally, fish paste is reduced to a thick, rich concentrate, which has usually been cooked for a long time. It can be contrasted with fish sauce, which is like a fish paste except it is not cooked for so long, is a thick liquid rather than a concentrated paste, and may include seasonings and other flavorings.
Read more about Fish Paste: History, Traditional Pastes, Animals
Famous quotes containing the words fish and/or paste:
“Everything seems beautiful because you don’t understand. Those flying fish, they’re not leaping for joy, they’re jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them. That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies, the glitter of putrescence. There’s no beauty here, only death and decay.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“In a thousand apparently humble ways men busy themselves to make some right take the place of some wrong,—if it is only to make a better paste blacking,—and they are themselves so much the better morally for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)