Bones_ Recipes, History, and Lore - Jennifer McLagan [77]
2. Remove from the heat, cover and leave the chicken in the hot liquid for 1½ hours, turning the pieces after 45 minutes; by the end of this time, the chicken will be cooked.
3. Remove the chicken from the liquid and place on a platter. Strain the liquid into a glass measuring cup or bowl and let stand for several minutes. Skim off the fat and pour ½ cup (125 ml) of the liquid into a small saucepan (discard the rest) and bring to a boil and stir in the green onions, ginger, and chile.
4. Pour the sauce over the chicken, and serve at room temperature.
Fish
Water covers two-thirds of the earth, yet fish remain a mystery to us. Few of us tackle them whole, preferring to buy boneless fillets, which give us little idea of what the whole fish looks like. This is a shame. It’s much more appealing to select whole fish from a bed of ice, or live from a tank, than to choose among several sad fillets on a tray. Whole fish have an intrinsic and dramatic beauty that makes fish markets such fun, yet even some fish lovers are scared away because of their bones. Perhaps if we were more familiar with fish, we wouldn’t be put off by their bones.
Lurking uncharted in many fish are small and hard-to-see bones, making whole fish not only challenging but somewhat time-consuming to eat. What use are these bones? Why should we even bother with them?
Buying whole fish actually is easier than shopping for boneless pieces. Whole fish provide clues for judging freshness. Fresh fish looks as if it has just leapt out of the water, bright, shiny, and with all its scales intact. The gills, found only on whole fish, are hidden under flaps below the eyes. They should be bright red. If you can, don’t be afraid to check; give the fish a prod with your finger at the same time—its flesh should feel firm and resilient. Moreover, with no exposed flesh, whole fish is less susceptible to bacteria and spoilage. Bones keep the fish moist while preserving its flavor.
To find a good fish market takes your nose and a lit- tie knowledge. Sniff and look. There should be no fishy smell evident, and the fish themselves should also pass the freshness tests. They should be displayed on a bed of ice with more ice blanketing them. Make friends with the fishmonger, because preparing and cleaning the fish is his job. He can help you select fish and suggest alternatives, since many fish are interchangeable in recipes. He will also set aside those valuable trimmings, heads, and bones for your stockpot.
Bones not only aid you in selecting your fish, they add flavor and texture to the cooked fish. But to simplify cooking and eating fish on the bone, you need to know where the bones are. To understand a fish’s bones, familiarize yourself with its skeleton.
Many criteria are used to classify the thousands of fish in our oceans, lakes, and rivers—firm or flaky, freshwater or ocean, lean or oily. I have organized fish in this book by their skeletons.
There are bone whales, bone sharks, but the most interesting are bonefish. Members of the herring family bonefish are found in tropical waters and are a popular game fish. They are eaten but, as the name suggests, they are full of bones. To make them easier to eat, the fish is stretched to break its bones and then suspended so that the bones fall into its stomach cavity.
Roundfish
Ask someone to draw you a fish, and they’ll draw a round fish—it’s the archetypical fish. The classification name—round—is misleading. Round fish are not round at all, but tube shaped. These swimming tubes come in various sizes, from large tuna to small aquarium fish. Look carefully at the fish in an aquarium and you’ll notice that some of them are round, plump tubes, obviously round fish, while others are very thin flattened tubes—but even these thin ones are round fish. Observe how they swim, that’s your clue: all round fish swim in a vertical position. While this maybe useful when