There’s a bad joke among old skool strawberry nosed newspaper sub editors when training newbies. “Fresh fish sold here” is the sign above the fish shop. “Fresh” can be removed because of course it’s fresh. “Here” because that’s obvious. It’s a shop, so lose the “sold”. And the “fish” because you can smell it a mile away.
It’s a lesson in brevity that I’m ignoring because I can.
This particular fish I didn’t smell,or even see coming. I didn’t even kill it; smash it on the head; bash it on a rock; or stab it with a big knife.
I’m lucky that I bought my from a fishmonger dead, its blank eyes starring me out. All I had to do was take it home, scale, gut and prepare – tonight on hot coals on one of those cool tiny $20 Vietnamese BBQs that I gave away a while back.
Usually, fishmongers will scale and gut it for you but I daren’t ask as these ocean perch were so damned cheap.
The shopping expedition started off like any other with me deciding that I wanted to make a tuna tartare at a time of year when they aren’t plentiful and would cost about $50 a kilo.
But at the market we found these beautiful fresh orangey-pink fish at $3.99 a kilo. I asked for two. No not two kilos but two fish costing less than three bucks – you heard it right. How could I expect it scraped and gutted for that?
These are big headed fish, ideal for stock and soups and the flesh on one is enough for a person. First the landlady, for once not wearing her ocelot print velure tracky dacks and novelty slippers but still feeding her New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc habit, scraped the scales off the fish.
The tip here is to wear an apron and hold the fish deep in a sink as the scales do go everywhere. There are special devices that can make this easier, which is useful for larger fish. My current father in law has a home made plank with nails in it which he scrapes across fish, the ones big enough to have a movie made about.
Next it’s my turn as it turns out my Sauv Blanc swilling friend is squeemish. I don’t have a dedicated implement for fish and simply take a sharp 25 inch chef’s knife and stab the fish in the neck between the gills, cutting it open up to its arsehole. I simply ripped the guts out and dumped them.
The landlady, while I’m under attack from a fishy pussy, makes a paste in a pestle and mortar out of small hot chillis, red shallots, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, lime juice, olive oil and seasoning. The exact formula doesn’t matter but the end result is far more aromatic if pounded rather than whizzed up in a food processor.
I cut the fish flesh diagonally, rubbing this marinade into the fish inside and out leaving it to stand for, it couldn’t have been, 30 minutes.
It was then simply a matter of BBQing the fish for probably about ten minutes.
You can’t eat much better than this for three bucks.
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