Day 17

Turn your head so that you can look at my friend John Dory. Doesn't he look grumpy? He was grumpy. And he didn't want to be nice about my filleting him. It was tricky. He had lots of bumps and those beady mean eyes. Don't you worry. I took him down.
He looked less menacing after his run in with mr. fillet knife.
Now he just looks sad. He was filleted and skinned and saved for Thursdays class. Next up was Mr. Monkfish. He is one ugly motherfucker. Please immediately look him up on the internet so you can see what he looks like with his head on. We didn't have the pleasure of getting head on monkfish. Just a slimy tail. This is called poor man's lobster, you know.
It looks like lobster meat in shape and color once the grody skin and membrane are removed. We will roast it later this week with mushrooms. I am really stoked on this. I had roasted monkfish with wild mushrooms in Iceland and it might have been one of my favorite dishes of all time. I am sure the quality of our monkfish (and freshness) will not match up.


We then gutted and scaled red snappers. That's not pleasant. Unless you like scales flinging themselves into your face and trying to lodge themselves up your nose. My nose is not abnormally large, either. It was a hot mess. The guts were fine, just those damn scales. I would do it outside like on a dock, but not in my home kitchen. Once cleaned, we filleted and skinned the snapper in preparation for a papillote of red snapper. A papillote is a parchment package that you can fill with whatever flavors and vegetables you please as long as they are thinly sliced and cook within about 10 minutes. I put my snapper on top of julienned red pepper, shitake mushrooms, and green onions. On top I placed julienned ginger and shallot and some lime slices. I poured some rice wine over the top, seasoned everything and add some cilantro leaves. I would have used mirin if they had it but no luck. It would have been better, though I think. You heat this folded up package in a frying pan until slightly puffed and then pop it in the oven for about 10 minutes. Serve with rice and TA-DAH!

The best part about this dish was the start to finish aspect of it. We started with actually gutting and finished with a lovely lunch. Very satisfying.

Tomorrow: more fish and maybe a salmon mousse.