[london.food] Cutting up fishes again

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From: Kake L Pugh
Subject: [london.food] Cutting up fishes again
Date: 13:17 on 03 Oct 2004
Last week I bought two red snappers from the North End Road market.  I
managed to get the innards out (the second one was much much better
than the first) and baked them with parsley and lemon inside.

This week I only bought one (because I was going to cook it last night
and doop was going to be out).  Didn't cook it in the end, so I
decided to make fish soup/stew with it today.

I'm definitely getting better at it - I got the head off in one piece
and most of the insides came with it.  I also managed to skin it this
time and I think remove all the bones.

What I am wondering is how much flesh should I be expecting to get
from one of these?  They aren't very big and the fishmonger said
they're one per person.  I ended up with 5oz from this one.

The other thing is, once I'd finished, the flesh was rather mangled.
Put it this way - I'm not going to have to chop it.  Now it *has* been
frozen (they sell them that way), so do I have any real chance of it
being reasonably whole once I've got the spine and stuff off?

And another more general question: How do I work out which discarded
bits of a cleaned fish are good to put in stock?  Bear in mind that I
like tripe and natto, so an answer like "don't use the bits that look
icky" isn't going to help.

Oh - and how do I scale a fish without most of the scales pyoinging
back and going everywhere?

Kake

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