Re: Fw: Re: [fast5] Small fish from Asian Markets

Friday, May 18, 2012

Re: Fw: Re: [fast5] Small fish from Asian Markets

:-) Thanks. I gleaned most of what I know from YouTube and Cook's Magazine, and places like HowToHeroes. It's a really great time to live, right now, if you want to learn anything! Maangchi is really fun when it comes to cooking Korean style.

Something interesting in terms of Asian food. I work sometimes in a clay studio. There is a Korean lady there. One day there was a potluck. While she was working she said "I don't know WHY I am so hungry now!". I asked if she had some of the potluck food. She said yes, she ate a lot of it, that's why she can't figure out why she is hungry. She never gets hungry after she eats at home.

See, I think that there is something in the Asian cuisine that just satisfies the appetite, where the American cuisine does not. When I have my fish/rice/vegies meal, I am plenty full. But if I eat say, spaghetti with meatballs (rice spaghetti, in my case), then I'm still left craving my regular rice/fish/vegies. It's worth experimenting to figure out what meals truly are satisfying.

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 2:51 PM, churyl <churyl@gmail.com> wrote:

wow! thank you so much!

i often think you should write a book. such a wonderful wealth of knowledge. i suppose there is your blog, which i love also.

thanks again, heather. my life is much enriched because of you, in so many ways.

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@gmail.com> wrote:

I handle sardines same as smelts ... just fry them. I don't actually eat the guts or the heads, when I fry them. I guess I could work up to it. With croaker and some other fish, they are often filled with eggs and then I leave the eggs in: they are yummy! Otherwise, the guts are kind of bitter. The Koreans ferment the guts ... which is kind of where "fish sauce" comes from. I just buy the fish sauce, which is required in a lot of Thai recipes anyway.

When I cook salmon heads, I put the big heads in a big pot and cook for a few hours. The heads fall apart, and most of the bones turn to mush. The important thing is to remove ALL of the gills, or it ruins the soup. Removing the eyes isn't a bad idea either: they probably have good stuff in them, but the middle of the eyeball turns into this super-hard bone that does NOT dissolve in the soup. The rest of it just sort of disappears, but I remove anything that looks like part of a fish head. Then add coconut milk and some vegies, and it makes a really nice chowder.

Croaker and some other fish have this really hard bone in their heads that doesn't dissolve either.

Putting small fish in a pressure cooker or sous vide makes them come out like canned fish, so the bones are nicely edible. Put the fish inside a container (like a glass jar) with the lid on loosely, in a bath of water. The collagen kind of dissolves into the broth, making a gel and the fish are yummier, I think.

The fish will also be yummier if you brine them before cooking. When you get the sardines, cut off the head and gut them. Then put them in some lightly salted water (taste the water before adding the fish: it should be lightly salty, like a good soup) in the fridge overnight or until you are ready to cook them. When I freeze fish, I put the fish and brine in a ziplock bag, which brines the fish and also keeps them from getting freezer burn. Anyway, brining changes the protein structure of the fish (or poultry, meat, or even beans!) such that it keeps more of it's moisture as it cooks.

You can add soy sauce, sugar, rice wine, rice vinegar (in about even amounts) instead of salt to make a teriyaki brine, which is also very yummy with fish.

When you cook fish, either just *barely* cook them, or cook them for a long period of time (like chowder). I cook seafood last in the meal, and only for a minute or two, just until they become firm. This is especially important with scallops, calamari, and shrimp.

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:43 AM, churyl <churyl@gmail.com> wrote:

i have a great source of whole fresh sardines. i cooked them once in the oven, whole, and it was difficult to eat. the eyes staring back at me, the guts spilling everywhere and tasting bad to me, the bones everywhere. and yet when i get sardines in a can, i love the skin and bones. i don't notice any guts, and there are no heads...

if eating the whole fish is a good idea, i'd like to work my way up to that. but i'm curious, how do you make them?

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Churyl Zeviar wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@gmail.com>
To: fast5@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [fast5] Small fish from Asian Markets
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:44:26 -0800

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Churyl Zeviar <churyl@tmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 8:06 am, Heather Twist wrote:

Salmon is not my favorite fish. I like small bony fish, preferably with
the skin. And often, in Asian stores, they are sold with the guts too
(esp. if they are full of roe, which is wonderful). Whole baby fish are
big in Asian cuisine (they are sold as a bar snack too!). They are
extremely filling and loaded with nutrients.

I would love to try this! There is a huge Asian market near my home.
With a large fish counter. What do I ask for? If they even understand me
this time! Or maybe I should bring a picture... what are the small fish
called, so I can find a pic on the internet? Esp the ones with roe?

Thank you!

The ones with roe are usually yellow croaker. You can tell they have roe because they are uncleaned and very fat. But I don't know the names of them mostly either ... I just point and smile. They have a lot of good frozen fish too. The Asian stores around here have amazing vegetables too: way better quality, more variety, cheaper prices. I love coming home with a big bag of lichis or mangosteens.

I have a Korean cookbook, and a Japanese cookbook (and there's lots of stuff on the Internet and at the library), so I find stuff in there too. Mostly it's pretty easy, just different.

The dried fish look like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niboshi

They take a bit of psychological getting used to, but they are one of the most nutritious foods anywhere (they are used for feeding expensive birds too). I am not an expert at cooking them (yet!) so I often buy them pre-cooked in a kind of sweet chili sauce at the Korean store. You can just sautee them in hot oil and sprinkle salt on them too ... it's the Asian version of hot peanuts (ok, they have hot peanuts too, which are also awesome).

Don't forget that it is chestnut season too ... fresh hot chestnuts! They have nice fresh ones at our Asian stores too.

-- Heather.

--
Heather Twist
http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/