Go fish

So today we headed into the world of fish. We learned about the different classifications of fish (fat, lean, fresh, salt water, flat and round) and how to select, prepare and cook them.

We started with the whole fish and learned how to dress or clean them, including eviscerating (slitting the belly and pulling out the viscera (inards)), and filleting and skining a variety of fishes for cooking, including a large piece of high-grade tuna. The chef took the best part of the tuna, coated it lightly in a dressing and seared it so we had wonderful delicious pieces of seared rare before lunch. Yum!

After lunch, the cook explained some of the main cooking techniques (pan frying, poaching, baking, preparing them en papillote (in parchment to steam it in its own moisture in the oven), gravad lax (lightly dry-salted and weighted for 24 hours), pan roasting, searing) and we went into the kitchen to prepare the dishes in what the chef said was a free form class. We prepared a number of dishes in informal groups, with little supervision, asking the chef questions as we needed to. As the dishes were ready, we tried them, and at the end there was an overall review and critique by the chef and we tried the dishes again. So, again we were all stuffed with too much fish in our systems. I like fish but was sick of it by the end of the day, working with it and eating way too much of it at one sitting or standing.

The fishes we worked with included: mackeral, tuna, monk fish, flounder, salt cod, salmon, snaper, striped bas, skate wings.

The dishes we prepared included: gravad lax, garlicky salt cod fritters (Bacalaitos Fritos) with cilantro dip, casserole of salt cod, potatoes and onion (Portugese Bacalhau a Gomes de Sa), salt crusted baked fish, smokey broiled spanish mackerel, flounder roulades (rolled with herbs and baken in the oven covered by parchment), coriander-crusted tuna, broiled marinated mackerel, and whole steamed fish chinese style with dipping sauces (made in a wok),

To find out more about the seasonablity of fish and other details we were referred to www.seafoodwatch.com. We were advised to avoid eating fish or seafood at a restaurant on a Sunday or Monday as fish is usually not delivered on those days and will therefore be less fresh.