Our foray into fish came to a close this week. As I fried my last fish, I was ecstatic that it was all finally over and I might soon smell like a semi-normal human being again (while in French culinary school, I am fairly certain you never smell normal). However, shortly thereafter fear slowly crept into the edges of my psyche. The reason for this fear is simple and yet frightening to me: as far as school learning goes, it's over for fish. Chef formally taught me everything he could in the time given for fish. Hmm. That time isn't very long, especially when I envision myself in the final exam, staring at a lifeless, slimy, whole fish and thinking, "What am I supposed to do with that?"
Some may say that I should just buy some fish at one of the plentiful markets in Paris and practice at home. To those people, I say that you must have missed the post about my kitchen.
Whether or not my fears come true, I must say that I am still ultra excited at the prospect of not sticking my hands into a fish belly at 8 am any time soon. Woo hoo!
Sauce Americaine
Apparently, in France, they have an "American Sauce" which is basically a crab bisque without cream. It's delicious, but quite frankly I find it more than odd that the French have named it Sauce Americaine. However, if there is one thing I have learned at Ferrandi, it's not to question why the French do anything they do. The answer usually given by Chef when asked something of this nature is, "Because. Zis iz France. Zis iz ze life." and the conversation ends there. :)
Again the crab and cleaver meet. Again the cleaver reigns victorious. Again it just doesn't seem fair.
Fileting this monster is like standing on a bed of broken glass. Literally. It's painful.
Saute the crabs and "ze veg."
Add some brandy and step back.
Add some liquid and let simmer.
When ready, crush the crabs even more to get all the yummy goodness out of them and then put the concotion through a strainer. No one wants crab shell in their Sauce Americane, do they?
Season the fish with Piment d'Espelette which Chef loves just as much as people in Louisiana love Tony's. He puts it on EVERYTHING! Saute the fish and finish in the oven.
Finished product.
Fried Fish
On our last day of fish, we did the ultimate cooking method: frying. Yep, we pan-fried and deep fried. Take that arteries! Now, this is where I thought we might see something named after America (you know you love your fried fish. Don't lie to yourself). Instead, we made gougenettes, which are the French version of fish sticks. Leave it to the French to come up with a fancy sounding name for fried fish sticks! We also pan-fried an entire fish, which was pretty cool. See below for details.
For the fried whole fish, we started to filet both sides of the fish, but stopped just short.
Leaving the spine exposed.
Then, cut out the spine.
The fish is ready to be breaded and fried. Doesn't he just look so excited about that?
With the other Merlan, we made filets for the fish sticks which we then sliced on the bias so we could call them gougenettes instead.
We then had to make a tartar sauce, which is obligatory with fish sticks. So, we made some mayonaise by hand. (Side note: it is a fact that my brother just stopped reading this blog post because of the mayonaise).
The final tartar sauce was full of all kinds of things: pickles, onions, shallots, capers, egg. The list goes on and on and while that might sound like a bit much, it was really good with the fish. Or was I just hungry and in a state of glee that it was my second to last fish dish in school?
The gougenettes, very lightly breaded and ready to go.
Bring on the deep fryer.
Finished plate. Even the parsley was fried!
The whole fish, lighlty breaded and ready to fry.
In this skillet of health.
Chef told us to do one "good coloration" on the fish.
And voila! The end of fish went out with a bang. Pan-fried and topped with an herb and garlic butter. Yum!
Too bad I had to stick around to clean these pans with coarse salt and some elbow grease.
Farewell Fish!
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