On 2014-10-16 00:44:57 +0000, cshenk said:

> Oregonian Haruspex wrote in rec.food.cooking:
>
>> On 2014-10-15 03:59:04 +0000, Travis McGee said:
>>
>>> On 10/14/2014 11:39 PM, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
>>>> On 2014-10-13 02:15:18 +0000, Pringles CheezUms said:
>>>>
>>>>> I want to learn to cook fish dishes that people will actually
>>>>> want to eat.
>>>>>
>>>>> 1 - Do any of you have a very-easy-to-make fish dish that your
>>>>> family asks for over and over?
>>>>>
>>>>> 2 - What's a good cookbook, one that has good basic instruction
>>>>> as well as some great recipes?
>>>>> There are several high-rated books on amazon that have a decent
>>>>> number of reviews, including ones by Bittman, Moonen, and
>>>>> Peterson. But I prefer personal recommendations, which is why
>>>>> I'm posting here.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the help!
>>>>
>>>> You're making this a bit too complicated. The Joy of Cooking
>>>> (1975 edition preferably) has all the basic recipes for all your
>>>> different broad categories of fish. Once you learn how long each
>>>> type fish takes to cook with each method, variations in seasoning
>>>> and so forth come naturally. Specialist cookbooks like the three
>>>> you mention are largely an exercise in photography, and there are
>>>> plenty of nifty photos of well-prepared fish on Flickr for free.
>>>>
>>>> We live less than 200 yards from the ocean, in a town with an
>>>> active fishing fleet. In addition to that, my wife and I are
>>>> both into fishing as a hobby. Each type of fish can be treated
>>>> any number of ways, and once you know how to prepare fish well
>>>> your family will be excited to have any DECENT fish. I see many
>>>> errors committed by people who buy and cook fish, though:
>>>>
>>>> 1.) People go to the store / market knowing what kind of fish
>>>> they want in advance. This is stupid. Unless you are buying
>>>> frozen fish (which you should avoid doing unless you live in an
>>>> area with poor access to fresh, high quality fish) you always
>>>> determine which fish you purchase according to a function that
>>>> takes price and freshness into account with freshness heavily
>>>> weighted over price. And you never, EVER eat farmed fish with
>>>> the exception of Atlantic salmon farmed in Norway because of
>>>> their strict quality control regulations.
>>>>
>>>> 2.) People usually overcook fish. With any oilfish such as
>>>> mackerel, sardine, euchalon, sable, etc you should generally cook
>>>> the fish just until the flesh loosens, then take off the heat and
>>>> let stand like a steak. With tuna and family, you should cook
>>>> until the inside is rare, and let stand like a steak until the
>>>> inside is medium rare at the MOST well done. With cod and
>>>> anything with cod-like meat with fat (firm white flesh) you
>>>> should cook the fish until the fat just starts to come out then
>>>> let stand like a steak (seeing a trend here?) for a few minutes.
>>>> With fat salmon, you should cook the fish until the fat just
>>>> starts to emerge and then let stand, but lean salmon and trout
>>>> might not have enough fat to visibly emerge (instead they often
>>>> have more of an oil) so you must watch them carefully like an
>>>> oilfish and remove them when the texture starts to flake. But
>>>> with fat salmon and cod (and cod-likes) if you wait for the fish
>>>> to flake it will be overdone by the time it is cool enough to
>>>> eat. Specialty methods will take more practice - I often broil
>>>> sardines whole, which is delicate business. I also often simmer
>>>> sardines and mackerel whole, until every bone is soft enough to
>>>> eat. I cook sturgeon like a pork roast.
>>>>
>>>> 3.) Every fish has a season, so learn what they are and eat them
>>>> in season. There is a reason for this - many fish are decidedly
>>>> inferior out of season. Just because it's available frozen this
>>>> is no guarantee that the fish was caught at peak season either.
>>>> I only rarely buy frozen fish, and only from reputable
>>>> fishmongers who obtained and froze the fish themselves in season.
>>>> And I would never buy a fish that I can not at least visually
>>>> inspect. I prefer to visually examine and even smell a piece of
>>>> fish or buy the fish whole and uncleaned, because it is easiest
>>>> to tell if a fish is fresh if you can view the whole carcass.
>>>> Look for bright, shiny eyes, firm flesh, good color, and a moist
>>>> but not slimy surface.
>>>>
>>>> 4.) Practice makes perfect, and there's no way in hell you are
>>>> going to do a super-great job unless you really get to know each
>>>> and every fish you intend to cook. If I encounter a new type of
>>>> fish, unless it is generically like one I already know how to
>>>> cook I assume I might **** it up the first half dozen times I
>>>> prepare it and am pleasantly surprised if it turns out great by
>>>> the third preparation.
>>>>
>>>> I do have to say though, the idea that you can read a book and
>>>> magically become a great fish preparer is preposterous. I have
>>>> spent decades becoming proficient at cooking game, poultry, fowl,
>>>> domesticated animals, fish, and shellfish as well as everything
>>>> else and I must say that fish and shellfish are easily the most
>>>> challenging foods to select and prepare properly, followed by
>>>> game and then vegetables.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Your argument overreaches. I don't think anyone thinks that reading
>>> a book will make you a master of fish preparation without any
>>> practice, but I do think it's possible for a beginner to read a
>>> basic cookbook and immediately prepare a simple dish, which is
>>> obviously what this poster was looking for.
>>>
>>> I have no doubt that you are a genius at fish preparation in
>>> particular and cooking in general, but you completely missed the
>>> intent of this person's post.
>>
>> I think you missed the point of my post, which I summarized by the
>> second sentence - "Get and read The Joy of Cooking!" It's useful not
>> just to learn about fish, but it has everything you need to become an
>> adept at cooking. Anyway while I don't think I have attained the
>> level of genius fish perparer yet, I do think I'm well past the adept
>> stage and closing in on masterhood. Nobody told me what I summarized
>> above, and it would have been useful if they had.
>
> Actually I agree with Travis. 'The Joy Of Cooking' was not what the
> original poster was looking for. In fact, I have a copy and would not
> send a beginner looking for fish specifically to that book.
>
> The Sunset Seafood Cookbook series is a good one for starting out with.
> Another is Fish Dishes of the Pacific from the Fishwife (Shirley
> Rissuto). The Fishwife book is a total perfect one if you have just
> moved to Hawaii as it has the names in Hawaiian and the english
> translations (so you can see that Ono is Wahoo and so on).
>
> Its how you know Opakapaka, Onaga, and Uku are repectively Pink, Red
> and Gray snapper in the grocery store. For all the naming being
> different, the dishes are simple and most are very suitable for a
> beginner. My favorite is Steamed Opakapaka w/ lemon Soy Sauce.

These Hawaiian names really have nothing to do with anything outside of
Hawaii. I mean they make for interesting trivia but you'll never see a
fish named Humuhumunukumunumuapuaaa at the store off island.

If a person wants to learn how to cook fish they have to learn about
how to select the fish, why a certain fish will be amenable to certain
treatments, and so forth. Putting lemon soy sauce on it is probably
the easiest thing to do, but if you've chosen an iffy specimen and
cooked it improperly, or slightly too long, or not long enough, all the
lemon soy sauce in the world won't help you.