Cooking The Catch: Fish Tacos & Crabmeat Stuffed Flounder

So, we've caught our fish and filleted them up!  Now, we need to cook these bad boys.  How about some flounder fillets with crabmeat stuffing and beyond fresh fish tacos ?  Cool?  Let's do it!

Flounder with Crab Seafood Stuffing

Ingredients

4 Flounder Fillets

1 package of store-bought crabmeat stuffing - about 1lb

1/4 Cup of Butter Crackers (Ritz)

4 Tablespoons Salted Butter - Melted

Salt & Pepper to taste

Olive Oil

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  On a cookie sheet or other oven safe large pan, cover with aluminum foil and drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil across.  Rinse flounder fillets and pat dry with a paper towel.  Lay all four fillets on pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and add a nice thick layer of crab stuffing across each fillet.

For two of the fillets I am going to roll them and the other two I leave flat.  The ones I roll, I use a few toothpicks to keep from unrolling.  To be honest, there's no need to roll them.  I think that the flat ones have a larger surface area for the buttery crumbly butter crackers that I will immediately cover these in and then douse with butter.  Cook for 15 minutes until you can see the fish is firm and white.

          Before                                                                                  After

 

Let it cool for about 10 minutes.  In the meantime, let's make some fish tacos!

Fish Tacos with Peach Salsa

Ingredients

- Fish

4 Scup Fillets

1 Lime, Juiced

1 Quart Sized Plastic Ziploc Bag

- Peach Salsa

2 Ripe Peaches

1 Medium White Onion

Big Handful of fresh Cilantro

1 Lime, Juiced

8 Corn Tortillas

Vegetable Oil

Prep Time: 30 Minutes

Cooking Time: 15 Minutes

Whether you buy a piece of meat from the supermarket and catch your own super-fresh fish, always rinse for a few seconds to get any little something something off.  Then, put the fillets in the quart-sized ziploc bag.  Slice a lime in half, and I recommend using a juicer to juice the lime.

Juice the lime straight into the bag.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes.  In the meantime, let's make the peach salsa.  Slice the peaches in half, remove the pit, then dice into roughly 1/4 inch pieces.

Put in a large bowl, dice the white onion into the same 1/4 inch pieces and also add to the bowl.  

Take that handful of cilantro and chop roughly chop into tiny pieces and add it to the peaches and onion.  Then juice 1 lime straight into the mixture, mix, and voila!

After the Scup fillets have marinated, turn on the broiler in your oven to high, put aluminum foil over a cookie pan or other flat pan, and drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil over the foil and put the fillets on the pan.  Broil fillets for 7 minutes, 4 minutes one side, 3 minutes the other side.  You want the fillets to be light and flaky.

Before                                                                                            After

While the fillets are in the oven, fill a small cast-iron skillet with vegetable oil to a depth of about 1/4 inch.  It will not take too long to heat up.  Prepare a plate with a few paper towels to absorb the oil after the corn tortillas are cooked.  Once the oil has heated up, a few minutes at a medium high heat, add one corn tortilla and let cook for about 30 seconds.  If the oil at the edge of the corn tortillas isn't bubbling then the oil isn't hot enough.  After 30 seconds turn over with some tongs.  The tortilla should be lightly crispy but still pliable enough to fold gently in half.  

I like to use 2 corn tortillas and 1 fillet for each taco.  Let the tortillas cool for a few minutes.  Then place one tortilla inside the other, add the fillet and peach salsa.

 

 

The only thing I would recommend is to marinate the Scup fillets at the beginning if you plan on cooking both of these.  That way they will be finished around the same time.  

Now eat your heart out, you've earned it.

Fishing the West Passage & Filleting the Catch

Every June in Rhode Island, there is an event that defines the summer....for some.  It is an assemblage, a gathering, an extravaganza.  In a word, it is a BioBlitz.  An opportunity for those with a passion for the natural world to come together and explore.  Put on by the Rhode Island Natural History Survey and attended by scientists and those interested in our surroundings, this year almost 300 people attended this 24-hour event.  During this event, participants are broken up into teams, e.g. plant team, bird teams, mammal team, and marine team, to name a few.  I participated on the marine team.  Why?  Because I like boats, and I like water, and I have found that I like to haul things out of the ocean.  It probably stems from the Portuguese and Italian heritage.  

The goal of the marine team was to catch as many different marine species as possible.  And this is how we began:

We began by fishing for fluke (aka Summer Flounder).  I think the other thing I love about fishing is the opportunity to emulate prey.  The bait on the pink squid on the right is shiny and attracts fish.  I'm not entirely sure why the pink attracts fish but it does.  As we drift in the ocean, lightly bobbing our bait along the bottom, I feel a pull.  I'm not entirely sure that I have something, then my line bends, and our Captain points and nonchalantly says, "you've got something."  So I reel and reel and reel.  Much to my great pleasure I pull this out of the ocean:

So awesome.  And it didn't even eat the bait!  Over the course of the event our marine team kept three Fluke and five Scup.  We also caught and released three black sea bass and a little skate.

And you can't beat the view:

And after 24 hours of blitzing we are ready to depart but not without our fish.  I thought I would take this opportunity to share how to filet fish.  I, of course, did not partake, but our trusty Captain has many years of filleting under his belt and provided great direction.

Let's start with the Fluke, and remember, everyone has a different way to do it.  But this makes a lot of sense:

Step 1) Make sure the fish is dead.  Sever the spinal cord by putting your knife through the gill and down through the spine.

Step 2) I think the pictures may be more helpful than trying to explain it....

Run the knife down the lateral line

Run the knife along the bones separating the filets from the ribs.  There is a thin bit of connective tissue that separates easily with a sharp knife.

Again, run the knife down the center of the fluke to separate the filet.

Now let's get that skin off

Needless to say, a very sharp filet is essential for this process.  And stay tuned to see how I cook these bad boys up!