The Tales of Fishy Fun-ness!

Hello everyone!

I know I haven't blogged in quite a long time, however today I have had a new and enormously exciting experience, so I just had to share it with you! Mom and Stephen bought a Salmon today; we're going to eat this salmon tomorrow. Now this salmon is whole, the only thing missing is it's guts (oh darn!).

I've never had the pleasure of getting to play with fish heads before, but sure enough this fish has it's head, and Mom came equipped with four extra fish heads for a homemade fish stock. I was practically jumping with excitement, I mean, Come On! Fish heads! Fish heads that I get to play with! What more could any girl want?!

Mom set me up with my own cutting board, a long serrated knife, and a fillet knife. My instructions were simple: cut the heads and the tails in half, and remove the gills. Cutting the head in half was a feat in itself, because the fish were quite slippery. Thankfully I quickly figured out that pushing my thumb and forefinger into the gills help hold the fish still so I could hack through the bone. Holding the fish in this manner also produced the lovely and slightly gross act of squirting blood. It squirted onto my hands and all over my cutting board in lovely, clotted dark red spurts!

Now, it must be pointed out, that I'm used to having my fish already cut up for me, so I've never seen the gills of a fish (with the exception of the goldfish I dissected in the 7th grade, but that fish was tiny). So there was plenty of excitement and learning involved, as I studiously examined the gills, figured out where they joined to the jaw, how they were jointed together, and tried not to stab myself on the teeth (I failed).

Eventually I was able to apply my newly acquired visual knowledge of these gills to that of a chicken wing, so I could figure out how to cut the gills out in two slices (instead of hacking my way through like I had been doing) after that everything came easily, and I felt extremely proud of myself and how fast I was going.

All too soon I was out of fish heads to cut, and then Mom and I moved onto the next phase of making the fish stock; putting the fish into the pot of vegetables and sweating the fish until it turned 'White' (I say it was more of a pale pink colour, but still). I was extremely fascinated by the eyeballs, because they started to pop out of the sockets and float around like little white gobstoppers! Finally, the juice was strained and put into Tupperware containers, and Voilà! We have homemade fish stock!

So yes, I had a good day today ^.^

'Till next time!

Xoxo

Ash