Yes, okay, I thought I was clever with the name for these little puppies. We were at the grocery store yesterday afternoon, and in addition to having fresh corn (which I remember two years ago was selling for 8/$1, but is now 4/$1), there was quite a selection of fresh fish. Nugget has been asking me for weeks to buy a whole fish, head and tail and all. I always explained I had no idea what to do with a whole fish. I decided to throw caution (and potential financial prudence) to the wind and use it as an opportunity for Nugget, Rooni and I to learn together how to fillet fish. The fishmongers there are truly wonderful, and always take the time to show the children various fish or lobster, and are often filleting large fish where we can watch up close. We bought a whole red snapper, wrapped it up and took it home to fillet according to their directions.
It was an interesting exercise, because I want to continually expose the children to learning and knowing where their food comes from (Rooni has been with me while I was working on a local sustainable farm "processing" chickens by hand, and Nugget had previously helped feed those same chicken) while still maintaining the boundary between what is healthy interest and childlike fascination on their part, versus encouraging unwanted behaviors. For example, we discussed and examined how the fish use their gills, how they don't have eyelids, and how the tail fin spans wide and small. I allowed Nugget to expand the tail, touch the eyes, feel the teeth and tongue, but no matter how much he begged I insisted he not poke the eye with a toothpick. It seemed too disrespectful, though that seems hard to reconcile with the fact that we were eating the fish.
Anyway, it was much easier to fillet the fish than I anticipated, but I was equally dismayed to see that a full half the weight of the fish that I bought was bones, head and tail. And therefore thrown out, basically doubling the per pound cost of edible fish. Since I am the geeky food type, I used a digital food scale and scraped out as much extra meat as I could from between the bones and inside the head. It yielded over an ounce more meat, which I decided could be mixed with some mashed black beans, splash of water, some bread crumbs and an egg yolk then dipped in panko and pan-fried. Viola! HushGuppies. The ounce of meat and extra ingredients made four.
Meanwhile, the two fillets were simply pan-seared and topped with salt and pepper. The corn was steamed for ten minutes, with half an ear reserved for the next day's lunch.
It was an interesting exercise, because I want to continually expose the children to learning and knowing where their food comes from (Rooni has been with me while I was working on a local sustainable farm "processing" chickens by hand, and Nugget had previously helped feed those same chicken) while still maintaining the boundary between what is healthy interest and childlike fascination on their part, versus encouraging unwanted behaviors. For example, we discussed and examined how the fish use their gills, how they don't have eyelids, and how the tail fin spans wide and small. I allowed Nugget to expand the tail, touch the eyes, feel the teeth and tongue, but no matter how much he begged I insisted he not poke the eye with a toothpick. It seemed too disrespectful, though that seems hard to reconcile with the fact that we were eating the fish.
Anyway, it was much easier to fillet the fish than I anticipated, but I was equally dismayed to see that a full half the weight of the fish that I bought was bones, head and tail. And therefore thrown out, basically doubling the per pound cost of edible fish. Since I am the geeky food type, I used a digital food scale and scraped out as much extra meat as I could from between the bones and inside the head. It yielded over an ounce more meat, which I decided could be mixed with some mashed black beans, splash of water, some bread crumbs and an egg yolk then dipped in panko and pan-fried. Viola! HushGuppies. The ounce of meat and extra ingredients made four.
Meanwhile, the two fillets were simply pan-seared and topped with salt and pepper. The corn was steamed for ten minutes, with half an ear reserved for the next day's lunch.
6 comments:
I have to gush over these puppies--I love snapper and clever makes me want to try something new (with or without knives) 99% of the time.
The ultimate celebrity fishmonger (Scott Weinstein, BlackSalt, DC) on picking out fish: "You can poke, prod, and smell it -- all those tips you read about -- but really, it's most important to know the person you're buying the fish from. Develop a relationship with that person. Talk to them about the fish, make an effort to learn from them and know that it's all about trust."
I believe this (sounds like you have this) and while I think he might agree with you about respecting the fish, the under 5 set's compulsion to poke the eyes with something exploratory & sharp is probably pretty universal.
The waste can be huge, but you could consider making a gorgeous fish stock and/or continuing to broth out the gelatin from the bones (they did this on Iron Chef the other night with a GIANT fish). Hmmm....can you put aspic in a bento?...After deriving stock and gelatin, you could run clean bones in a food processor to make your own fish bone meal for the garden. High phosphorus lovers--anything fruiting or flowering--would be grateful for this truly renewable meal!
I'm anxious to see how my kids would react to deer processing--somehow, even a BIG fish feels like a smart place to start--thanks for taking the leap!
I hadn't even thought of using the fish for plants, but of course! I kept looking down at the carcass as I doubled-wrapped it for the trash, wishing I was closer to the farm so I could throw it in with the compost. And I also cannot believe it didn't occur to me to make stock. It would have made great stock. I'll do that next time. Thank you!
And if you process a deer, please let me know :-)
Oohhhh, I have it! Aspic in the shape of a fish eye! Maybe for Halloween... (and it would be okay to poke that one, I guess...)
FTR, red snapper is not a sustainable fish choice...
Thank you, Carol. I need to take that into consideration as well. We have never eaten red snapper before. I hadn't thought to ask about the sustainability when I bought it, or mercury levels for that matter. It was the only "whole" fish they had, which was what blinded me to thoughts about anything else, though it did have a sign that said, "Wild-Caught", which I took to be a good thing.
I checked with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch Program List. They list snapper on the eco-worst, but according to the EDF some of the reason that snapper is on the eco-worst is b/c young snapper are caught by the millions as a by-catch of U.S. shrimp trawlers. In the Gulf, a new "catch share management system" is reducing by-catch numbers, conserving stocks and giving fishermen a fair price, so that is hopeful news for eating red snapper at some point in the future.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium also lists various types of snapper and which ones are good alternatives, if folks can remember which ones (based specifically on their location) are better alternatives, yet it doesn't address the mercury levels: http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=41
An interesting side note which somewhat boggles my mind is that no one seems to know much about snapper, such as definitively stating how old they are when they reach full maturity.
Thanks for the great post. I wanted to mention that corn should come down. Not sure where you buy but in an EC Giant corn was 10/1.99 this past week. Not sure if you are buying all local or doing chain grocers...
~Janice
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