Fish

This weekend begins National Fishing Week in Canada.  As I recently visited Canada and have now met some of my wife's family who live in Canada, it seems a fun thing to take note of.

I remember in my youth, I fished several times:  a few times with a grandfather, and a few times while in Boy Scouts.  However, I never got into it enough to want to do it all the time.  In fact, I found it to be rather uninteresting.

However, I love working with fish. While I tend to do most of my work with saltwater fish as opposed to freshwater, I will work with any fish or any other seafood that comes along.

Give me a nice salmon filet, a fresh piece of red snapper, or some scallops (I prefer sea scallops but I will take bay scallops as well), and I am happy man in the kitchen. 

I love eating a McDonald's filet of fish sandwich, and I've often thought of trying to replicate that and improve on it in my own kitchen. But it's one of those many things on my cooking to-do list that I haven't gotten around to yet.  

One of my very favorite things that I have done more than once, which I did completely experimentally, was to purée scallops, then freeze them in small little medallions (miniature patties), coat them afterwards in a breading and grated parmesan cheese and then deep fry them.  They are so incredibly good.  I haven't codified the recipe or the process yet.  It's also another of those things on my to-do list that awaits my attention.

One of my true pleasure in working with fish is a simple piece of clean red snapper.  The meat is white although the skin is red and silver.  And I simply sautée it slowly with butter and seasonings.  It doesn't need much added to it as the flavor is mild and can be easily overpowered, but the flavor is very nice even if mild.

I won't be out fishing during this National Fishing Week, but perhaps I will go to the seafood counter and find something interesting to cook.

Enjoy these first days of summer, everyone!