no gills, no guts, no scales

Today I was extremely busy and barely had enough time to write this post. Some people think fish is easier than meat class, but personally I have been spending hours on the homework (the same as meat), but for some reason the ID part of fish seems harder, I think mostly because in meat, we were more hands on, and saw demo's that were specific to cuts we did that day, instead of whatever needed fabrication. In that manner, I can see how meat was a lot more organized and the atmosphere was more conducive to learning.

In class, we went over the importance of omega 3 fatty acids in fish (the fattier the fish, the more omega 3 fatty acid its likely to have). For example, krill is what salmon eat (and which is why theyre pink in color. Those krill have more omega 3 fatty acids than salmon (which has a large amount), so people are starting to eat krill for its health benefits. Since our bodies do not make these omega 3 fatty acids, we must consume them, they help with many functions in our body including prevention of heart disease, depression, colon cancer, reducing blood pressure and raising HDL's. 

Heres the fun fact of the day (though we receive a lot of interesting information from Chef Clark):

Do you know why traditionally malt vinegar is eaten with fish & chips?

No, its not because it cuts the fat from frying. Because in the old days in Britain, the lower class would be the ones who ate fish & chips. They would use a type of shark called dogfish as the fish for it because of its cheap cost, and because these sharks did not have urinary tracts, they excreted urine through their skin. Because of mishandling during shipment and use, they would add malt vinegar on top to get rid of the strong uric acid smell left on the fish. (yum!)

Anyways, here are some things we did in class. I have less opportunities for pictures in this class because we are more busy and its a repetitive filet everyday usually. 

Here's a wolf fish. It's extremely ugly, but very tasty:

It was one of the fish we filleted:

There is an interesting story behind this black sea bass. If you can tell from the photo, the gill plate is protruding, instead of lying flat like you usually see in whole fish. The reason for this is because the fish is so fresh that it is still in rigor, and the gill plate hasn't toughened up. It's likely that this fish is "too fresh," and its flavor won't be as developed as a black sea bass after its passed its rigor stage:

Here is part of the tasting we did that day: