The Class With the Shucking

Interesting Fact: To correctly store a whole fish, place the fish in a bed of shaved ice in a perforated container. The belly cavity should be stuffed with shaved ice and the fish should be covered with additional shaved ice. The perforated container should be placed inside a second container and the fish should be re-iced daily. Never use cubed ice as it will bruise the fish's flesh and leave air packets that will allow the fish to decay quicker.

The class began with some quick notes on fish and shellfish identification. The 6 steps to checking whether a fish is fresh (smell the fish, feel the skin, look at the fins and tail, press the flesh,check the eyes, gills and belly), the difference between a univalve and a bivalve mollusk, and the difference between a round and flat fish were all detailed before we broke out the knives again for our knife drill. From here on out, for 15 minutes a class we will be practicing one particular knife technique - last night we chopped parsley. I must say I felt much more comfortable with the knife in my hand this time around.

From there we went on to our Fish ID.

Mollusks: We looked at some blue-point oysters first. Chef showed us how to shuck them and then we got to shuck some ourselves. You'd all be happy to know I did this successfully and without stabbing myself in the hand. I promptly eat a few oysters as most of my classmates enjoyed the shucking but not the sucking. Then came the clams. More yum. We looked at mussels. [Bonus interesting fact: Clams and Oysters are alive if their shells are closed, but mussels gasp for air and could be open, press on the shell - if it closes shut, the mussel is alive]. We looked at sea scallops removed the innards and put them to the side.

Crustaceans: Out came the soft-shell crabs and chef taught us the proper way to kill these puppies, first snip off the eyes with kitchen scissors, then remove the lungs, and the flap. We killed and cleaned the crabs and put them aside. We then shelled and deveined some mighty large prawn and looked at some alive and kicking lobsters and learned how to tell the difference between male and females.

Regular Ole Fish: I learned how to properly filet both flat fish (ie. a flounder) and round fish (ie. red snapper). The fish (using our checking techniques), didn't look so good so the entire salmon, flounder, red snapper and mackerel that we filleted went straight into the trash.

Cephalopod: We looked at squid, learned the proper way to clean them and how to find the inkspot. It was all very exciting, and class was only half over.

Then the cooking prep instruction began. I managed to properly clarify an entire pound of butter without burning it. I prepared a tomato concasse, that was not totally de-seeded, but the dices were decent and I was proud of my attempt at knife skills. We roasted peppers. We made bread crumbs, croutons and en croute. We zested a lemon. I zested my thumb.

All the while chef was boiling a big pot of water. We took out the lobsters again. Killed the suckers and threw them into the pot. While we were cleaning up and finishing, chef cooked the lobsters and sauteed the soft shell crabs, scallops and prawns. We feasted. Another class brought us some leftover cheese fritters and another class, on their sandwich making day, brought us all kinds of tasty sandwiches. Yum!

Tonight: My first quiz. Wish me luck. Then we move onto beef fabrication. And by fabrication, I mean butchering. (Hopefully this means I'm having me some steak for dinner tonight).