Cooking: Filleting a Fish (first time)

The experience was not as easy as it was in the video. I could not do the pull the head to remove the guts (although most of the guts have already been removed). Then, I am able to fillet one side. Cutting through the ribs was harder than it appeared in the video. Filleting the other side was not as clean as the first side especially when cutting the ribs. After that, I pulled out the rib bones. This was very difficult with fingers. I did not have tweezers. Overall, I did get two fillets. They appear so much smaller than I had imagined from the whole fish. I used the rest of the fish for soup.

Life: Cleaning and Gutting a Fish

Today, I accidentally bought a fish that was not scaled nor gutted. I had a general idea on how to do this by watching others (mostly my mother). Take a knife and rub against the direction of the scales. Cut the bottom of the fish, and take out the innards.

What you don't learn from watching is how slippery the fish is, how far the scales will pop if you haven't done it before, and wondering if I'm bruising the fish because I am grabbing it pretty hard. When taking out the innards, I didn't know what from what so I just removed everything that was removable and not familiar from eating whole fish before.

The whole ordeal probably took my about 30-40 minutes including reading an article on how to clean, scale, and gut a fish.

Most places will do this for you. I'm not sure if the place I bought the fish did it because typically they have already been scaled and gutted or they do it before giving it to you or they ask if you want them to do it... hence I didn't give it a second though.


Reference
http://fishcooking.about.com/od/wholefishrecipes/ss/gut_and_scale.htm

Fish
Bronzini fish

Review: Shao Mountain

Fish Fillet with Dual Flavour

This dish is rather large with two fillets. One covered with red chili peppers but was surprisingly milder than the other half which was topped with a green chili peppers. Both were really good. This dish does take a while for the restaurant to prepare. We basically finished the other two dishes before this came out.

Braised Pork Slices with Bean Sprouts

This was ok but a little disappointing. This was about 10 slices of thick bacon. After a couple slices this tasted rather heavy. I wish they could have made the skin more crispy. The bean sprouts were more enjoyable. Tastes better with rice and with another dish that is lighter like Melon with Garlic.

Squash / Melon with Garlic

This is basically squash with a lot of diced garlic on top. This dish nicely balances with the Braised Pork that we ordered (even though I would have liked to have ordered another braised pork dish). Beware for anyone that is not particularly fond of garlic or people on dates, there is a lot of garlic in this dish.

Overall

The spiciness is a nice change. I have not eaten at other places with a high degree of spiciness as this place especially for chinese restaurants. There are quite a few interesting dishes that I would like to return to try. As usual, I also find this place a bit salty for my palate.