Live Eels Cooked In Natural Spring Water Or Pan-Fried Till Golden At PUTIEN’s Eel Festival

Given how many unagi-centric Japanese restaurants have opened up here (like Unaemon, Man Man, Uya Unagi and Miyagawa Honten), to say we’re familiar with eel would be an understatement. However, outside of the usual Japanese kabayaki-style unagi, which is slathered with a sweet, savoury sauce and grilled, it isn’t easy to find eel prepared any other way in Singapore.

Enter PUTIEN. The one-Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant specialises in Fujian cuisine authentic to Putian, a town in China’s Fujian Province. Sandwiched between mountains and the sea, Putian is known for its bounty of fresh produce and seafood. To spotlight these fresh ingredients, Fujian cuisine focuses on simple, modest cooking methods to bring out their natural flavours. The same food philosophy is applied to PUTIEN’s Eel Festival, happening from now till October 31, where two simple yet delicious eel dishes have been introduced to its menu for the first time.

There’s a good reason why PUTIEN has dedicated this period of time to the Eel Festival. Eels typically migrate from lakes to the ocean to spawn and live out their days between August to October. To prepare for their arduous journey, the fish naturally store body fat and plump up during these months, resulting in eel meat that is well-marbled with fat and especially tender.

To ensure the eels are as fresh as they are succulent, PUTIEN’s eels are air-flown from eel farms in Ningde, Guangdong, to Singapore twice a week, kept live in the kitchen, and sliced up and deboned only upon order.

Made up of just four ingredients, this dish may be minimal but it packs a punch. Live eel belly meat — used for its more robust flavour and texture — is cut into bite-sized pieces and lightly cooked in clear spring water, before slightly spicy ginger, sweet goji berries and sea salt are added. It’s then cooked for just 10 minutes to create a light, refreshing broth that complements the juicy fish.

The simplest dishes are the hardest to get right. This offering is essentially just eel with salt as a seasoning, so there’s little to hide behind when a mistake is made. To ensure perfection, the devil is in the details for the chefs at PUTIEN. The succulent tail-end of the eel is sliced up and pan-fried in oil on a hotplate until the skin curls up slightly and the meat on its exterior turns a little golden. The eel is then finished with a sprinkle of sea salt for flavour. No-frills, no problem — each piece is crispy on the outside, moist and meaty on the inside.

As both wild and farmed eels become increasingly rare, eel dishes often bear a hefty price tag. PUTIEN’s offerings are priced under $50 for sharing portions, with eight pieces in the soup and six or nine pieces for the small and medium pan-fried version, feeding about four people. Pair both dishes with PUTIEN’s iconic Fried Heng Hwa Bee Hoon ($10.90 for a small plate) for a truly satisfying eel meal that won’t burn a hole in your pocket.

PUTIEN’s Eel Festival menu is available at all its outlets island-wide (except Jewel Changi Airport) till 31 October 2019. Find out more at www.putien.com/event/eel-festival/