Fish

[Don Cuevas]

The last fish dish I had was at Fonda La Veracruzana, in Colonia Roma Norte, México, D.F. It was just last Sunday!

Although I'd ordered Filete de Mero a La Talla, I was brought a whole mojarra a la talla. I made the best of it, and it was delicious. Dealing with the large bones was not a big problem.

Pescado a la talla is usually a whole fish, split and butterflied, with a medium spicy seasoned "adobo" paste on the cut surfaces, then broiled.



Sra. Cuevas ordered Lomo de Pámpano a La Veracruzana. Pampano is not a fish we have seen before in México. It was very nicely prepared and not excessively spicy.



Fonda La Veracruzana has become one of our favorite seafood restaurants.

[lagatta]

I'll definitely try the oven-roasted recipe. Not sure I'd like parmesan with smelt, and there is a third of a cup of butter poured over the smelt, which is certainly as much fat as my fried smelt contained!

Though of course these recipes can be tweaked. I also looked at the other recipes in that article "Maine's Food Hero" as of course we border on Maine and have much the same foods, though the seafood does come quite a way, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

[bixaorellana]

Continuing a discusion of "basa" that began in the What's for Dinner thread .................

Jun 17, 2012 15:39:08 GMT imec said:

Pan fried Basa fillets with a chipotle beurre blanc.

Jun 19, 2012 4:58:38 GMT bixaorellana said:

Imec, I've tried basa twice -- once in a good restaurant & once at home & just can't hack that strange texture. What did you do to get rid of that simultaneously rubbery yet unpleasantly uncooked aspect of the basa.

Jun 19, 2012 14:36:54 GMT imec said:

Huh? Mine had no such texture - in fact I just tried the leftover piece in the fridge to be sure of it. But then, what would a prairie lad know about fish? I simply dredged it in seasoned flour and pan fried it in olive oil and butter - pretty high heat - and served immediately. Maybe it was fake basa... Either way, I'm keen to try it again - I think it would be nice battered and fried with (real) chips!

Jun 19, 2012 17:50:49 GMT casimira said:

Isn't basa a type of Catfish? They look like catfish filets to me.

Jun 21, 2012 1:59:57 GMT bixaorellana said:

Re: basa: who knows what fish is being sold under that name here. Even tilapia gets renamed. I know & like catfish, so I don't think it's that.

========================================================

Obviously it was time to visit wikipedia which tells us that basa is in fact a catfish from Vietnam, official name Pangasius bocourti.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish

Checking Mexican google yielded the same information.

The only possible clue as to why the basa I had wasn't nice was this:
Other related shark catfish may occasionally be falsely labeled as basa fish, including Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (iridescent shark) and Pangasius pangasius (yellowtail catfish).

However, the info on both of those indicated they're important as food fish, so no reason to suspect them.

Now I'm annoyed, as the true basa sounds lovely, but I'm afraid to buy whatever it is that's being sold as basa in my area.

[onlymark]

As I wander through the fish section of my normal supermarkets and the specialised fish shops I avoid buying anything that, when looking at the name of the fish, begins with panga. Kerouac has ruined me for life. Never mind the fact that the texture and consistency of this class of fish has little appeal for me.
When I do buy fish I buy Nile perch or what we know here as 'Hamour' which is grouper.

[Deleted]

I still manage to eat panga from time to time, telling myself that the version imported halfway around the world is fed proper food and has been strictly checked by EU authorities. But it's true that the consistency of the flesh is almost always a disappointment -- it is usually mushy.

[bixaorellana]

Last night I cooked "rojo imperial" filets, another mystery fish. They were cooked in garlic oil then topped with a grainy mustard/caper sauce. The sauce was wonderful, the texture of the fish was again not right, being rather soft & slippery.

I know for a fact that most of the fish in the supermarket & even some in the market was previously frozen then allowed to defrost.     It's particularly insidious in the market, as it's laid out on beds of crushed ice ornamented with fresh parsley, but is the same dubious product packed in styrofoam & plastic in the supermarket.

Maybe basa, whatever it might be here, needs to be let off the hook, as it were. I'm suspecting the fault lies with the way the poor fish are handled before reaching the consumer.

[Deleted]

I just realized how little fish I have eaten recently: some smoked mackerel with salad, some cod roe in a salad, and okay, I will admit it, I found that Monoprix makes surimi that is not overwhelmed in the retch-inducing hyper fake crab taste, and I quite enjoy dipping surimi sticks in sweet chili sauce while having a drink.

But I need some real fish now. Hmmm, I do have a jar of rollmops in the refrigerator.

[Don Cuevas]

The most recent fish that Sra. Cuevas and I shared was a Huauchinango a la Sal on Saturday at the Restaurant El Racó, in Mexico City.

It's a medium sixzed whole red snapper, buried in a bed of coarse salt and roasted at a high temperature. The Chef, Sr. Alfonso Cuevas (no relation) deftly removes the salt and debones the fish tableside. It's served there without any further seasoning except for a touch of olive oil. Shared, especially, the portion is not large but the taste is pure and unmasked.


The fish revealed.


The pure filleted huachinango. That's a version of Pommes Duchesse at the top.

The whole description of the meal is here:
mexkitchen.blogspot.com/2012/06/raco-mended.html

[bixaorellana]

Oh, I would LOVE to try that!

[hwinpp]

Me too! It looks damn good.

[Deleted]

Cooking things in a salt crust has become all the rage here. I have not yet had the opportunity to try it.

[rikita]

i recently read about how i should eat a lot of fatter, more northern fish because of those omega 3 fats... so i made some salmon recently, and some tuna... just wanted to say that, because the topic is fish...

[Deleted]

I think that I'll be doing something with rollmops tonight. The jar in the refrigerator keeps calling out to me.

[lagatta]

This Cod, Leek and Potato Gratin looks basic and good - I love leeks, and of course cod and potatoes are a lovely couple. Personally I'd add some fresh herbs (which I grow on my balconies in the warm weather, and what I can save by windows, in the winter). Some oregano, rosemary, sage...

I actually enjoy slicing potatoes very thin. But wonder whether a mandoline is worth the bother and expense - some are very cheap but I wonder whether they are just crap. And would I use a more expensive one enough to justify the cost and storage space?

www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/cod-leek-and-potato-gratin.html

People who are lactose intolerant or who really have to avoid cholesterol can use the fake soya cream (don't cringe - it comes from Belgium, and is much better than it sounds). We now have a lactose-free cream available

[onlymark]

I have a mandoline and use it often. Mine is fairly cheap black plastic thing but does the job quite well and just has a rinse under the tap to clean off. It doesn't have a stand but just sits on top of a bowl.

[lagatta]

I'm going to once again attempt fishcakes. Spiced up with a bit of panang curry sauce (which comes in tiny little tins). Steamed (frozen) haddock, some potato mash of course (yellowish "Arctic Gold" potatoes), green/spring onion, some fresh dill (which I had for another recipe), also some "instant" (precooked) polenta, and a tiny peewee egg. Hope this works out. My fishcakes always seem a bit bland, and I don't want to overdo the hot spice, which can be a lazy way of providing flavour.

I prepped the haddock and mash ahead of time, will do the rest tomorrow morning. I'm too tired to cook now.

[Deleted]

You have inspired me to make some fishcakes as well -- but it is so true that it is really hard to get the spices right, even something as simple as salt and pepper!

Meanwhile, Knorr here has come out with a new bake-in-bag product for fish with a combination of white wine, dill and liquid cream (you add the cream yourself). I have tried it, putting a complete fish in the bag, even though the instructions assume that you are only going to put fillets, and it came out very well indeed. In the future I'm sure I will add a few of my own ideas of extra seasoning.

[lagatta]

Yes, I was lucky; my fishcakes are wonderful, not too spicy, and I was able to get them firm enough while using more fish than potato or polenta filler.

I haven't seen the Knorr thing here yet, but remember that while they are a multinational, their products are very local. Even within Western Europe.

[htmb]

My son caught a 7.5 pound grouper in the Gulf of Mexico, so I know what kind of fish we will be eating next.

[lagatta]

Yum! Renzo (my ancient tomcat) and I will be right over!

The best I've ever had was a wildcaught Arctic Char, way up north. Second best a doré (think that is a walleye or pike in English) which I actually caught myself in a river north of Lac St-Jean, in central-northern Québec.

[htmb]

Sorry, Lagatta, we gobbled it up so fast I barely got a picture:

[Deleted]

There is nothing like freshly caught fish!! I can't recall a time in my mind where I had to resort to frozen seafood.
Pray tell us how you prepared your son's grouper HTMB!

[htmb]

Casimira, when my son is around, usually once a week, he does the cooking and I do the cleaning up. I don't think he had ever cooked fish before, but it turned out very well. He baked the fish in foil with olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Very basic. My little granddaughters love fish, so we ate the whole thing last night.

Note: He would have used butter instead of oil, but one granddaughter is highly allergic to all dairy.

[Deleted]

It looks perfect.

[Deleted]

It sounds fabulous, and, I have no objection to the substitute of olive oil for butter in most instances, Garlic powder and garlic salt will not pass this palate though, and, are no substitute for the real thing I'm sorry.
My husband had a ever so brief penchant for using garlic salt on popcorn and now knows better than to even try and put it on any dish whether it be popcorn or whatever, I abhor it that vehementally.
I am a true food snob when it comes to certain things. Particularly when I grow my own fresh garlic.

[htmb]

He had planned to use fresh garlic, but the garlic we had turned out to be all dried up. Powder was the better choice. He also made jasmine rice with coconut milk and fresh parsley, a spicy onion corn mixture, and a salad with lots of chopped veggies.

[fumobici]

Jul 31, 2013 22:10:25 GMT casimira said:

It sounds fabulous, and, I have no objection to the substitute of olive oil for butter in most instances, Garlic powder and garlic salt will not pass this palate though, and, are no substitute for the real thing I'm sorry.
My husband had a ever so brief penchant for using garlic salt on popcorn and now knows better than to even try and put it on any dish whether it be popcorn or whatever, I abhor it that vehementally.
I am a true food snob when it comes to certain things. Particularly when I grow my own fresh garlic.

I'm afraid I fully concur here. Garlic powder is for me an unforgivable culinary transgression. I hate to be so snob, but I can't help it. Garlic is a serious business.

[lagatta]

I have a friend who did that for a while, in a "low-fat" phase, although she always has fresh garlic in the house, as I do. You really don't have to fry garlic (at low heat, watching carefully) in a lot of butter or olive oil to get the real garlic flavour.

[Deleted]

I ate panga last night and I hope to never buy it again, except perhaps to make fish hash. It just becomes so limp and mushy no matter how you cook it, not to mention having no taste to speak of. (I suppose that would be a plus for people who don't like fish much.)

[lagatta]

I've had it in spicy Southeast-Asianish curries; it was ok. Though it is a sort of fish tofu...

The main benefit here is that it is extremely cheap. How about tilapia, in terms of cheap, farmed fish? It is about as tasteless, though it doesn't have that soggy texture.