A group of us have been reading Josh Niland's ground breaking book called "The Whole Fish Cookbook." It's an educational book that teaches you a huge amount of how to transport, process, keep, cure and cook a fish, head to tail, and use every part of the fish to make food. It is a way to practice ethical fishing, and a way to respect your catch. I I haven't used any of the recipes in the book yet, but I have been getting a lot of inspiration from him. I recently made fish sausage and last week made my first ever, head to tail meal from 1 chunky lingcod.
I guess the description would be "Fish - Three Way": Strong broth (reduced fish stock w seaweed), garlic potatoes, topped with belly meat & lemon; then topped with charred lemon and yuzu ling caviar. Paired with fried bread under radish and black garlic & sake cured liver. Then made a veggie purée from the fish stock veggies and added squid ink for "color". I wasn’t a huge fan of how the liver turned out by itself, but with the radish and bread it worked really well. What a fun challenge to figure out how to make a meal using the entire fish! 33” (almost 20 lbs) Lingcod (the belly had 2 med perch in it, hence the super big gut). It’s fulfilling (pun intended) to know nothing was wasted! I'd encourage everyone to get a little weird and play with your food!
Wow awesome fish and fancy meal!