Recipe: Spicy Conger Eel and Eringi Mushrooms - Louie: What a fascinating petition. Are you or were you a marine?

Even though Puerto Rico is an island, I am not that familiar with Conger Eels. Maybe they are not found in our hot sea waters. I have tasted the small eels so priced by the Europeans, specially the people from Barcelona & other Catalan municipalities. They are imported to PR and sold at astronomical prices. But they are really good.

Regarding the Conger Eel, the Oxford Dictionary gives the following definition for CONGER EEL: "A marine fish of the family Congridae, containing 100 species, which grow to a considerable size, up to 2.75 m (9 feet) in length. The European conger eel, Conger conger, is abundant on underwater wrecks and reefs, but also lives in deep shore-pools and in crevices in harbour walls. It feeds mainly on bottom-living crustaceans, octopuses, and fishes. A similar species, C. oceanus, lives on the Atlantic coast of North America, and about 20 other species occur in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Conger eels spawn in deep water, and their young, called leptocephalus larvae, are transparent and flattened, and drift towards the shore, where they change into tiny eels. Source: Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press 1998

Here is a recipe I found in the Internet:

Spicy Conger Eel and Eringi Mushrooms

Ingredients (4 servings):
260g conger eel, bone removed
1 pack eringi mushrooms
100g bean sprouts
1 bundle Chinese chives
sanshou powder
(Japanese pepper), as required
2 TBSP minced garlic
1 TBSP minced ginger
water-dissolved
potato starch, as req.
1 TSP vinegar
1 TSP sesame oil
oil, as req.

Conger Eel Seasoning (A):
1 TBSP sake
a bit of salt and pepper
2 TBSP potato starch

Frying Seasoning (B):
1 TSP tobanjiang
(Chinese chili sauce
made from broad beans)
1 TBSP sake
3 TBSP soy sauce
1 TSP sugar

1. Scrape the slime from the conger eel skin with a kitchen knife. Cut off the head and the tail. Rinse and pat dry. Cut the conger eel into 1cm lengths. Rub with the sake, salt and pepper for the seasoning (A). Add the potato starch and mix.

2. Cut the eringi mushrooms into the same size as the conger eel. Cut the chives into 5cm lengths and remove the bases from the bean sprouts.

3. Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the eringi mushrooms until a little brown. Remove. Stir-fry the bean sprouts briefly in the wok and remove.

4. Heat 3 TBSP oil in the wok and stir-fry the minced ginger, minced garlic and tobanjiang. When fragrant, add the conger eel and fry thoroughly.5.When the fish is done, put the eringi and the bean sprouts back into the wok. Stir-fry. Add the sake, soy sauce, sugar for the seasoning (B) and sanshou powder to stir-fry. Thicken with the water-dissolved potato starch and add the chives. Add the vinegar and the sesame oil to finish.