Roly Poly Fish Heads

Dinner: Trout with Sauted Spinach and Whole Wheat Gnocchi
Bonus Recipe: Fish Stock

There are many things to do with a dead fish. Feed some cats, make a nice table arrangement...or brutally chop off its head and boil it, eyeballs, brains and all, into a nice tasty broth. People always say I know how to make things sound appetizing. I should go into marketing. But seriously, if you aren't squeamish about body parts, you can get a rich fish stock out of the left over bits you don't eat for dinner (Or..maybe you do. It's cool. We don't judge here). This makes a nice base for soups or seafood recipes that call for a broth or stock. But, let's start with something less gruesome. Potato gnocchi.

Gnocchi:
We get a local produce box delivered once a week. The mix is always different, and this week's delivery had 3 pounds of red potatoes. I had to use them up before I forgot about them and they got all wrinkly and started sprouting things and maybe developed awareness and an appetite for human flesh. Gnocchi sounded like a pretty awesome way to go about their demise. I have heard that starchy potatoes like russets are the best choice for gnocchi, but where as many people warn red potato gnocchi will fall apart and not bind firmly enough...mine seemed to manage. That's right, tell me not to use red potatoes and by god, I'm going to use so many red potatoes it'll be like a commie famine.

You can boil or steam your potatoes, but I chose to roast mine for flavor reasons. Rub some oil over those suckers, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pop them in the oven. I roasted these at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes (flipping the potatoes at the halfway point), but some people go up to 425. I didn't want really crispy browned potatoes, so I chose a lower temp, but hey, it's your potatoes. Broil those suckers if you want. When cooked, I mashed the potatoes and removed the skins. Since I only needed 1.5 pounds for this recipe, I saved half of the potato mashings to use as a flour substitute another day. Maybe potato chocolate chip cookies...hmmm.

Anyway, congratulations. You have taken out your anger for the day on these helpless little potatoes. They have been mashed, and they have been mashed hard. I followed the linked recipe, and used half whole wheat flout and half white. [link] . If you want something of a pattern, easiest thing to do is mash a fork into each cut piece, then kind of round it off and dent the bottom with your thumb. But really, you could shape them into stars or little Eiffel towers, and they'll still taste pretty damn good.

Spinach:
I needed some greens to have with dinner. While I hate that limp, tasteless, watery mess that usually is frozen spinach, I love fresh spinach. Even better if it is not infested with E. coli. Take some fresh spinach leaves, pop off their stems (or, if the leaves are big, use a knife to destem them completely), toss them in a pan with some olive oil or butter, some lemon juice, and a freshly pressed or mashed or minced garlic clove. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and cook til just wilty and tender.

Trout:
That brings us to the handsome gentleman whom I wish I could say I had the skill to catch myself. But no. He came from Winco. He was already gutted and had the whole butterfly fillet thing going on. Now, some people debone their trout after cooking them. This is perfectly fine. I prefer to debone before cooking, so I get all the bones out without having to try to pry out half dissolved cooked bones. If you want the whole fish gourmet look (head and tail on), you want to sever the backbone after the head and before the tail, otherwise the tail especially will come off when you remove the spine. I used the head, tail, and spine for my fish stock, so I just cut the head off and pulled the tail off with the backbone. There are a ton of methods to debone fish. I personally line my knife so it is under and pointing down along the back bone. I then gently move it under the ribs on both sides, then grab a hold of the spine and pull until it is off. You can then find the pin bones and cut a section out to remove them. But, I prefer just to find them with my fingers and pull them out (you can use tweezers or pliers to do this if desired) to preserve the meat, unless the fish has very firm flesh. Run your finger down towards the tail a few times. When things stop poking you, you found all of the pin bones. Except that one that is bound to poke you in the throat. Well done! Your fish is now as spineless as a squid or a preteen on a first date. Perhaps next time, you will buy a squid, and save yourself the trouble of tweezering out pin bones.

OK, let's pop that fish head and spine complete with tail into a pot and put it to the side for some fish stock. Turn your attention to the nice, clean fillet in front of you. You can season this guy a thousand and one ways. I'll just tell you what I did with this one. Sprinkle some freshly, thinly cut basil onto the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour about 2 Tb of white wine and a Tb of lemon juice over him. Slice a tomato into thin slices (that's an orange tomato...came with the 3 pounds of red potatoes). Line those slices on the fish. Cut a lemon into thin slices, and line those on the fish. Slice up half and onion and a clove of garlic. Cook the garlic and onion in some oil on the stove top until soft. Pour that over the fish. Fold said fish back into its regular fishy shape. Score the scales in three or four places. You can either cook at 350 degrees F for about 20-30 min or until tender, or you can broil this guy for about 4-5 minutes on each side. Or, you can burn yourself while trying to flip the fish, curse in a variety of different ways, try to flip the fish over again and have it spring open flat while spraying you with hot juices, say 'fuck it', and leave the fish open to cook like a pancake. Either way.

Fish Stock:
Let us return to that pot we set to the side. Holy crap!! There's a freaking fish head in there. Not to worry, that's supposed to happen. I hear that you should *not* use fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, and, um, trout for fish stock because it produces what some call an oily and overly fishy stock. But, I can't say I have discerning enough tastes to tell a salmon head stock from a cod head stock. It's water...flavored with a fish head. I really don't consider it to be something so delicate you can't mix it up a bit. You can use pretty much anything (so long as you remember the fish) to flavor a fish broth. I used what I had bought for our various meals this week and chose items that would compliment the rice soup that this will help make at a later date. Specifically, I used:
-Cut leek greens, you know, the very top leafy parts you don't eat and would otherwise throw out
-Shrimp shells (Now these have been used instead of just thrown out)
-Cilantro stems (now I don't just have to throw them out)
-Mushroom stems (Now I don't have to toss these either. Fish stock turns us into the mighty hunter. We are going to use every hair, testicle, and skin cell of that buffalo.)
-Lemon ends (Now I don't have to...you get the idea)
-1/2 a bay leaf
-About 1/4 Cup white wine
-Enough water to cover the concoction
Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. When you are done, find a way to separate the liquid from the chunky fish head and other bits. I take my colander, line it with a wet paper towel (so the stock doesn't feel the need to just absorb into the towel instead of drip down...you can use cheese cloth or something fancier), and place a tupperware container underneath to catch my drippings (This makes the stock easy to close up and put in the freezer. You can freeze stock for a while, but I hear you have to boil it every two to five days if kept in the fridge.). Eventually, I get a nice, savory fish stock in my container, and a creepy white-eyed fish head in my colander that *does* get thrown away at this point. Usually. I may instead decide to throw it at someone I don't like very much.

I you are like me, you wonder often what the heck the difference is between stock and broth. Well, I went on a long trek to find the answer. All the way to the other room to consult Google. Basically, stock is made with the bones and body parts of animals (and usually has a thicker, more gel like quality due to this), and broth is made from more of the flesh of animals. Stock will often be clear as well, while broth may be more colored. So, instead of using our fish head, if we had tossed in the fillet instead, we could have had fish broth. But...then we'd have no dinner other than a cold fish head, so I think we chose wisely.


Happy eating!