Day eighty nine

Our crab

What is the meat/shell ratio in a crab?

Today was a Crustaceans day. Each of us had lobster and crab. We had crayfish for the group and one guy cooked it in Louisiana style (with tomatoes, onion, garlic, paprica, a touch of cayenne). It was really tasty.

Lobster was easy. It has just two claws and a tail where meat is located. What I did not do is to skewer live lobster, so when you cook it the tail is not curve. May be it was my first lobster... I can imagine to put it in a boiling water (what I did), or stub it with my knife... But to skewer it first is not what I want to do. There is another way to avoid curving,

Day eighty eight

It seems we've got different salmons

How to make salmon tartar.

Another day of fish and seafood fabrication. The course is going to the end, only four days left, next Thursday we will have final and that will be he end of the course.

We are still waiting for a skate. I am wondering why it is so difficult to get skate. For the whole week we were waiting and waiting for it and every day it was magical word 'tomorrow'. We have not yet touched scallops, lobster, and crab. Again this is in agenda for the next week.

Yesterday we did revision of what we learned. We fabricated salmon, that time we portioned one fillet for 3 oz portions, and prepared the second fillet for smoking. We fabricated catfish

Day eighty seven

Oysters for today, just one variety

Oysters - the R month fallacy.

Today was oyster, mussels  and  clams day. We have a few type of oysters and clams, and mussels from Price Edward Island, Canada (PEI - is a common abbreviation).

What I did not know about oysters, is the fact that in case of rain, harvest is interrupted for three days (here in Tamales Bay). This is because rain water brings to the lagune area many undesirable thing (washes some fecal from farms around for example). Oysters are gastropods, which literally means stomach-foot, and therefore absorb all dirt very quickly. That will make impossible to pass inspection, since the flesh will have choliform level above limit. What farmers do is

Day eighty six

Dolphinfish is not a dolphin!

It was an easy day today. We had seafood class and management class.

First in the morning we have management class and we were talking about training. Who should ideally train people in a team (direct supervisor) and different types of training, as well as problems associated with a training.

Seafood class was good. Each of the three teams have different fish to fabricate. Our team has mahi-mahi (actually we have three of them for six people). Mahi-mahi is also called dolphinfish, however it has

Day eighty five

Tuna for the day. In front is its pectoral finn.

Tuna day!

Today was tuna day. We have one tune for two people. The fish we have was albacore tuna, smaller variety with light color flesh. Even that smaller variety fish on average weight 35-40 pounds!

Tuna is usually frozen in the sea. As soon as it caught, fisherman will freeze it. They use liquid nitrogen, so freezing is a quick process. Also important part in using liquid nitrogen, is that ice crystals have no sufficient time to form, therefore there is no damage for the flesh. If you freeze slowly, the ice crystals will form and they can damage cells.

Handling tuna was not easy. The fish itself is almost round, however the structure of the fish required to  take each fillets separate and there four of them, two on each side. The flesh was really

Day eighty four

Today's victim - sturgeon

What is so special about sturgeon?

Today we had only one class - fish fabrication. We did stripped bass again and it was really easy to it second time. The other fish we had today was sturgeon.

Sturgeon is considered to be an expensive fish, however not everyone likes it. For example, my instructor said that for him, sturgeon has muggy  taste and he does not like it. I do like sturgeon. The smoked sturgeon is the best.

Fabricating sturgeon is not so easy. It has a lot of fat inside, the skin is slimy and it's difficult to hold it. What is aso interesting about this fish - it has no bones structure. Sturgeon is a cartilaginous fish and has no bones. Spinal cord is

Day eighty three

'Catch of the day'

What is specific about catfish?

TGIF.

Today it was only one class - fish fab. The list of victims includes catfish, trout, and rock cod. Rock cod  was familiar for us, we did it already. Catfish and trout were for the first time.

Trout is very similar to salmon. The size is different, but the bone structure is the same. Flesh is also more delicate as to compare to salmon. We fabricated boneless, skinless fillets from trout.

Catfish was completely new. It has