Fish on the way home.

Much foodblogging this week!  I must be obsessed.

Here's the deal with fish at our house:  

1. Some time ago I put my foot down and said, darn it, I'll cook fish once a week, but it has to be good fish.  Fish from a reputable fish counter, where we can ask whether it's been frozen or not and when it was caught and whether it was wild-caught or farmed and whether it is being sustainably managed or not. 
2.  We shop on Saturday, but we want to eat fish on Friday.  A day when my fridge and pantry is especially empty; a day too long past shopping day to keep fresh fish.
3. The cheap grocery store where we shop on Saturday doesn't carry especially good fish anyway.
4. Therefore, the plan is for Mark to pick up some fish on his way home from work on Friday, either at the co-op or at the expensive grocery store (motto:  "Costs a lot more, but WE have baggers").
5. But!  These places have different fish for sale each week!  And at different, unpredictable prices!  And you don't really know what you want to buy till you get there and are standing in front of actual fillets and steaks!
6. It's me, not Mark, who carries an extensive many-branched decision tree of recipes in my head.  He is a smart guy; he knows that if he's coming home with fresh fish, buying a baguette, some salad greens, and a couple of lemons is a satisfactory solution.  A safe solution.  An engineering solution.  Works for any fish.  But if we're going to do this every week, we'll get bored with lemon fish/bread/salad.
7. Enter The Fish Buying Decision Tree.  (Download fish_on_the_way_home.doc)  

With this document, printed out, slipped in a page protector, and kept in the glove compartment or bike bag, Mark can bring home useful additional stuff that, with the fish, I can turn into dinner.

Caveats:  The document is written for my family, not yours.  The combinations are not guaranteed to please you.  Also, it assumes the presence of certain pantry staples:  canned broth, herbs and spices, soy sauce, wine, onions.  

Finally, the document doesn't actually contain any recipes.  If you want to try reconstructing them, try Google, possibly including the search term "Mark Bittman," who wrote the three cookbooks I drew on most heavily to construct the chart.

Of course, everyone should have a couple of fish recipes that rely on tinned fish for those days when stopping on the way home isn't practical.  My quick one is a pasta salad with tuna, mint, tomatoes, and capers; the more involved one is fried salmon patties with succotash and pot greens. 

Comments

[Margaret in Minnesota]

You. Are. Something. Else.

[bearing]

Um... easily led astray from what I ought to be doing into procrastination?

In the attic yesterday, Mark found a box of papers of mine from when I was writing my thesis. On the top was a page-long list on graph paper.

FURNITURE WE OWN
kitchen workbench 57x19
changing table 36 x 20
trash can 16 x 12 ....

I don't remember doing it, but I can imagine me looking from my computer screen to a stray tape measure on the corner of the desk and back, trying to work, then, unable to stand it, leaping up and making that list.

I had a good reason to do it, by the way, I don't just do this sort of thing for fun. I have to convince myself I need to first.

[Bernard Brandt]

Dear Lady (for I do not know your name):

May I offer you two words: flash frozen? These have been my salvation as regards buying fish at one time and cooking it at another. I have found that the quality of flash frozen fish, when thawed and immediately cooked, is very nearly as good as fresh.

May I offer you two other words: Trader Joe's. This excellent store has provided me for decades (yes, decades) with good, cheap food. And plenty of inexpensive flash frozen fish.

May I finally offer you an address (if you have not already found it), as my understanding is that TJ's has recently opened up shop in Minnesota:

Trader Joe's
4500 Excelsior Blvd
Minneapolis, MN 55416
(952) 285-1053

Enjoy.

[bearing]

Thanks for the recommendations. I've driven by that Trader Joe's a few times, but have never gone in. I think my cheap grocery store must only carry "ordinary" frozen fish, because it's always been yucky. Either that or the turnover's way too low and so the stuff has been frozen for months and months -- no matter how you freeze it, it doesn't keep its quality forever. Does your flash frozen stuff have a "best by" date on it?

To tell you the truth, I'm afraid it might be one of those places that I can't enter, because I won't leave without several pounds of fancy cheese, imported salami, itsy-bitsy jars of mustard, and Belgian chocolate.

[Amber]

I really like TJ's for some things, but not the fish. I don't think it is anywhere near as good as the fresh stuff. While it is better than the regular frozen fish, I find that the texture isn't what it should be and the taste sometimes suffers. Some fish works better than others, and some preparations work better than others. If I was looking to do a fish dish that didn't involve filets (say, a soup or something) the flash frozen stuff can be ok. But otherwise... well, I haven't been all that impressed.

And I love that fish sheet. Brilliant. I showed it to my (engineer) husband and he heartily approved as well.

[bearing]

Yeah, I think I'm with you, Amber. Sometimes I think it's not so much the "has it been frozen or not?" -- after all, a lot of the stuff on the fish counter has been previously frozen (the little signs say so), maybe even on the boat. Honestly, I think it's being able to look at the stuff and say, "That one -- right there -- that one looks good." You can't do that with stuff in the grocery store freezer. And -- remember -- nothing keeps its quality forever in the freezer. Commercially frozen seafood keeps its quality only six months, and that includes "flash" frozen, which I'm not convinced is any more than a marketing term. How long has that chunk of salmon been in the freezer at the grocery store? How much longer are you going to keep it in your freezer at home?