Lesson 8 - Fish

I was extremely nervous about this class for 2 reasons.  One reason is I am very picky about the types of fish I eat (I like fresh white fish from Hawaii - not so much trout and fishes like that) and the second reason is that I had never cut a whole fish before.  Turns out that all of us felt the same way, and we had another chef and person auditing the class, making it even more nerve wracking!

We learned to fillet both a flat fish and a round fish.  The round fish are easier because they are larger and only have 2 fillets - one on each side.  The flat fish are smaller and have 2 fillets on each side.  There is a lot more cutting involved with the flat fish.  I am so glad we learned how to do this! It wasn't really as tough as I thought it would be.

Here are some beginning pictures:

Flat fish:

Me cutting the fins off of my flat fish:

Flat fish Fillets:

Round fish:

Leftover bones & guts (yummy!):

With the flat fish, we made a white wine, shallot and cream sauce.  Needless to say, it is very rich!

With the round fish, we baked it in parchment paper.  The fish in parchment paper is FABULOUS!

Fish in wine, shallot and cream sauce (with potatoes):

Fish baked in parchment paper:

My classmates and I eating our fish:

Lesson 9 is also fish, so we got more practice filleting!