Today started our week of seafood. Chef Pete also gave us a handout from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. It talks about buying and eating sustainable fish. By purchasing fish caught or farmed using environmentally friendly practices, you're supporting healthy, abundant oceans. Their website is www.seafoodwatch.org. Check it out!
Chef Pete started the lecture talking about a little (very little) history of fish and fishing. There has been fishing since the beginning of recorded time. Historically, in the United States, it has been a large part of life in the Northwest and New England.
These are the things to look for when buying fresh fish:
1. Smell: The fish should smell wholesome and smell like the water they came from, not fishy.
2. Eyes: Fish eyes should be clear and plump, not cloudy or deflated.
3. Flesh: The flesh of the fish should spring back when you push on it. If it stays depressed, the flesh is old or is damaged.
4. Gills: The gills on the fish should be red and plump, not pale or white.
5. Scales: The scales should be intact, not falling off all over the place.
Even when you buy fish fillets or steaks instead of a whole fish, you can smell the fish and check the flesh for freshness.
There are two types of fin fish: flat fish (i.e sole, flounder, halibut) and round fish (i.e. salmon, trout). Flat fish yield four fillets, round fish yield two fillets.
There are a number of different cuts of round fish:
1. Darnes-which is a half a fish steak
2. Medallions-which are two darnes put together and wrapped.
3. Demi-Medallion-which uses only one darne.
4. Steak-when you cut thru the fish and spine (mostly salmon)
5. Fillet-which is one side of the fish
6. Goujon-which is a "fish stick" 3 inches long and 1/2 inch wide
7. Tresse-you take the Goujons and braid them
8. Supreme-which is a fillet cut at an angle so that each surface is flat. It cooks more uniformly and looks a lot bigger on the plate.
The cuts of flat fish are:
1. Fillets-taking the meat off the fish following the contour of bones
2. Papiette-a rolled piece of fish, usually stuffed (i.e. sole stuffed with crab).
3. Deliche-a fillet folded in thirds to form a "little package".
To properly store fish, it should be wrapped in plastic to protect the flesh from water and ice then placed on a bed of ice.
After the lecture, each of us got to fillet a whole Dover sole. We removed the skin from both sides of the fish, the ran our knife along with spine of the fish (which i would consider the side of the fish, not the top of the fish. Apparently they swim on their sides!). We removed all four fillets, removed the head and roe to ready the carcasses for fumet (fish stock). Interesting project, lol!
Lunch was a salad of mixed greens dressed wi a light vinaigrette, topped with shredded rabbit confit. In Hot Plate we made Sole En Papiote. We julienned some carrots, onions, celery and fennel and made potato tourne (which is cutting a small potato into a football shape, then giving it seven sides with a flat top and bottom). We laid all of this on top of a heart shaped piece of buttered parchment paper, laid three sole fillets on top of that, put a splash of white wine with a small amount of Pernod liquor mixed in to it, put tomato concassee on top of that, laid a few fennel fronds over top, wrapped it up much the same way you fold a calzone, and baked all the packages for about 15 minutes. They puff up because of the steam and when you take them out of the oven, put them on a warm plate and cut into them, all the steam comes pouring out. Once the packages were opened and in front of each student, we poured Lemon Buerre Blanc over the fish. Yum! Dessert was Creme Caramel, another form of custard.
Tomorrow, more fish!
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