Something Fishy

I live inland. My state is landlocked by 7 other states. There is no salt water near me besides the pasta water on my stove. So, it has been a long time since I have dealt with a whole salt water fish. On this day, I picked up a whole red snapper from Gulf Pride seafood. It cost less than $7 per lb for the whole fish, and nearly $15 per lb for it filleted. Let me do the math, I opted to take home a scaled whole fish, and use the fish bones for a stock. Why would I want to pay more for fish when I don't get to take home to bones?

I filleted my red snapper, not very well, by myself. Note to self, sharpen the knife before starting a fillet. It looks so easy on Iron Chef, and Top Chef. It has been 10 years since I have lived coastal and filleted a fish, so it was a bit awkward. About 1/2 way through the fillet of side one, I finally understood why the filleted fish cost over twice as much. Oh well. I had two unattractive fillets of red snapper that I made into the Nobu Miso Cod Style. I marinated the red snapper fillets in white wine, miso, mirin, sesame oil, and honey, then popped under the broiler for a little carmelization. Delicious. I love the simple combination of flavors of the Nobu Cod because it is so effective. I did use some artistic licensing, and used what I had on hand to make the marinade, so I substituted a little Napa chardonnay instead of sake, and I used toasted sesame oil because I love that flavor. It worked for me.

The fish bones, and residual fish on the bones, I made into fish stock. I did not have celery or carrots, but I had onion, flat leaf parsley and thyme for the stock. I added a couple pepper corns, and a dash of salt, and not too long after a boil then a simmer, there was a big Dutch oven full of fragrant fish stock. I could not believe how much flavor was given by this fish. I used all parts of the fish, and the fish had nothing left to give. I had about 8 cups of stock from this venture. Now what?

I knew exactly what. I have been looking at KatieZ's Thyme for Cooking and all the different rice dishes she has made, and I decided to make a risotto for the 1s time. I was lazy this day, and I wanted to use only what I had in the house, and I did not have any Arborio rice. So I had my choice, medium grain brown rice or Jasmine rice. Since I did not want to have to stir for 2 hours with brown rice, I opted for the Jasmine. OK, folks, it is really important to use a sticky and starchy rice like Arborio, or I bet sushi rice might work, but the average American Carolina rice is designed to not gum up and doesn't lend itself to a risotto. BUT, my pseudo risotto tasted pretty good, but with a rice porridge texture instead. I added onions, mushrooms, garlic, red chili peppers, salt, and thyme and started stirring and stirring and stirring in my fish stock a little at a time. After about 25 minutes of the stirring, I gave up knowing that I needed a gluttonous rice. It was a great experiment, and after sprinkling on a little parm cheese, I got a tasty side dish to my fish fillets. Sometimes lazy substitutions don't work out, but this one kind of did. The texture wasn't risotto, but at least it tasted great!