A small piece of pliers helped grab hold of the skin, while a thin serrated blade helped along the tough bits of connective tissue, especially near the fins. Once there was a large enough piece of skin to grab a hold of, simple hand pressure could strip most of the skin off.
Mark caught another catfish today out of the lake on our family's land. It is a flathead catfish, just like the one he had caught a few months ago. This one was quite a bit smaller, but the meat was just as good. He did the gory part and then I peeled the skin off of it. That really is the hardest part and takes the longest. I ended up with one and a half small fillets of meat that were fried up in dairy butter with a little bit of tarragon. Then I boiled what meat was left on the bones in a stock pot for 45 minutes and drained off the liquid. The 'fish soup' stock was quite good mixed with some miso. All in all, it was a good experiment.
Esme said 'hello fish' when she saw it in the sink and tried to talk to it. I explained to her that people eat fish and that we were going to cut this one up to eat. She was 'ok' with that - she said 'bye bye' fish and told him he was going to be cook cook in the oven. haha. She even wanted to look in our aquarium for more fish... but it has been empty for nearly a year. I think when she gets just a little older the full gravity of the situation will require a bit more comfort and explanation than a simple 'bye bye.' But I'm glad she took this well.
Esme got her own 'regular' fish sticks out of the freezer. She ate all of her fish and said it was very good. The whole 'real' fish experiment took too long and she was hungry right then. Mama and the cats both thought this fish was pretty good, though! The meat is like chicken in texture but with different 'break' points and finer bones. The taste was also like a much milder form of chicken and it held the butter flavor VERY well.
No comments:
Post a Comment