ID this Chinese ingredient (description only)

Factual Questions
1

I just went for lunch at a local Chinese noodle bar, where I had one of their excellent ‘house special’ dishes. It contained an ingredient I couldn’t identify.

It was thin, soft discs of what seemed to be seafood - pale straw colour, with a light brown mottled edge around the perimeter. About an inch and a half in diameter and no thicker than a matchstick.

It wasn’t scallops (there were scallops in the dish - this was softer and not so pale white)

It wasn’t squid or octopus (these were also in the dish, but they are much firmer than this was)

Any ideas what it was I just ate? I’d have asked, but they were really busy and previous attempts along those lines resulted in a language misunderstanding farce (the person taking the orders speaks English, but isn’t there when the food arrives at the table)

2

Kind of sounds like sliced water chestnuts.

3

You had tofu.

4

I don’t think it can have been those - they’re usually crisp. This was soft.

5

Could be some sea cucumber.

6

I wondered if it might have been tofu, but have onnly ever seen it arrive as chunks or cubes. What variety of tofu could it have been?

7

I’m not sure but I remember eating at a Chinese buffet once and thought I was helping myself to a dish with scallops. After a few bites realizing it wasn’t scallops I went back up to the buffet and read the sign. It was tofu. Google images brings up a few pictures of the disc cut type.

8

It could have been noodles. Some Chinese noodles have a cut exactly as you describe - called Ning ko. Did they look anything like this?

9

Kamaboko (Japanese Fish Cake)?

http://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+fish+cake&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsefd&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kFqxToCpAcuDsgLtqanSAQ&ved=0CEoQsAQ&biw=1204&bih=665&sei=%20klqxTsfSC8n3sQLPopGvAQ

10

was it Kamaboko?

11

Close but not quite. It’s a Chinese fish slice or fish cake. Similar to that would be Japanese satsuma age. The difference would be the fried exterior. It could also be a fried version of a fish ball.

12

Gotta agree with Aestivalis, it’s fish cake.

13

Could have been rice cakes as well.

14

Fish cakes are “fishy” and kinda sweetish. Rice cakes gets chewy when cooked/heated whereas fishy cake gets more rubbery and definitely not chewy.

I’ve heard Japanese use whale meat as an ingredient to make their fishy cake for those of you watching that whale war show.

15

Those would be ring-like in section when sliced though, would they not? These were solid discs,

I don’t think it was starch. Seemed meaty and protein-y (albeit in quite a delicate, diaphanous way).

16

Depending on how they are sliced; often sea cucumbers are cut like match sticks with one end kinda dark which is the skin. They are small enough that you can hardly taste what it is like. They are gelatinous and slightly chewy and can be mistaken as mushroom strips.

17

Could it be a mushroom? Reconstituted dried shiitakes have that meaty texture.

18

Mangetout described the mystery ingredient as “soft” which makes me think it wasn’t sea cucumber. Sea cucumber is chewy. I thought of fish sausage, (which doesn’t always taste particularly fishy).

19

I don’t think so - the texture was quite uniform - it was just a disc-like slice of something. I think it must be some sort of fish sausage/surimi, as others are suggesting.

20

Some type of processed fish meat seems most likely, as already pointed out. There’s a big variety of them, and many different names for them (kamaboko, fish cake, fish sausage, etc). Some are fried, some are more firm than others.

This seems highly unlikely. Whales are mammals, and whale meat is closer to beef than anything else. I’d sooner believe it’s used for hamburgers and sausages than fish cake.

(Not that I’m saying that’s likely either - food labeling laws in Japan are at least as strict as in the US.)