Bones_ Recipes, History, and Lore - Jennifer McLagan [89]
2. Season the fish well with pepper, and place in a ceramic or glass dish. Pour over the wine and oil, then scatter over the onion. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or up to 12 hours, turning once.
3. Thirty minutes before cooking, remove the fish from the refrigerator. Uncover and season with salt. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
4. Place the remaining rosemary and any extra branches you have in the bottom of a roasting pan large enough to accommodate the tail comfortably. Lay the fish on top and pour over the marinade, with the onions.
5. Roast the fish, basting every 10 minutes, with the pan juices for 35 to 45 minutes, or until it is just cooked through. The thin end of the tail will cook faster, so cover it with foil about halfway through the cooking time. To check for doneness, pierce the fish at the thick end of the tail, next to the bone.
6. Transfer the fish to a serving platter and keep warm, loosely covered with aluminum foil. Place the roasting pan over high heat, bring the pan juices to a boil, and boil hard for 3 to 5 minutes, until slightly thickened. Stir in the chopped parsley, spoon the sauce and onions over the fish, and serve.
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How to Eat a Whole Fish
Once you know where a fish’s bones are, eating it is simpler. The following techniques will help
you master fish on the bone.
Whole round fish take the most concentration. First, make a cut behind the gill flap, to separate the flesh from the head. Next, cut down along the top of the fish from the head to the tail, then turn your attention to the belly. This was cut open when the fish was cleaned, so simply extend the cut back to the tail. Starting from the tail end, slide your knife between the flesh and the backbone. Keeping the knife against the bones, lift off the fillet—don’t despair if it comes off in several pieces. With practice, you’ll slide it off in a single piece. With large fish, though, you may want to make a cut down the center of the top fillet through to the backbone so the flesh can be lifted off in sections, which is easier. I like to eat the first fillet as a reward before attacking the rest of the fish. Pay careful attention to the front half of the fillet. No matter how skilled you become, there is likely to be a tiny rib bone or two that has managed to stay attached. To remove the second fillet, you have two choices, unless you are superstitious (see page 175). Either flip the fish over and repeat the method just described, or lift up the backbone, starting with the tail end, and gently remove it in one piece, to reveal the bottom fillet. Eating flatfish is simpler. Begin by making a cut down the center of the fish, along the backbone from head to tail. Then run your knife from the backbone along the ribs out to one edge of the fish to remove the first fillet. Repeat in the opposite direction for the second. To remove the other
two, flip the fish over and repeat the process. With round fish steaks, the backbone is exposed in the center of the piece. You’ll see bones fanning out in three directions, straight up and then along each side of the flaps of the steak, which formed the cavity of the fish (think an upside-down Y). With these steaks, especially salmon, there can be that pesky row of pinbones that stick out at right angles into the flesh. Your best approach is to eat carefully around the bones. Flatfish steaks are very little trouble. Locate the backbone in the center of the steak, insert your fork, and twist gently. The bone, with the ribs attached, should lift out.
The best way to learn is to practice, practice, practice.
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Cantonese-Style Steamed Fish
Steamed fish is always part of a multicourse Chinese dinner. The Chinese steam the fish whole, as they know some of the best eating is in the head. My friends Karen and Vincent told me how good the steamed fish was at a certain Toronto Chinese restaurant, so we all went to eat it there. As they are regular customers, they arranged for me to see it being cooked. I watched