gone fishing

When I was a much younger gal, my uncle taught me how to fish. He would place a juicy worm on a hook and I would hang over the edge of the boat waiting for a fish to take a nibble. When I caught a fish big enough to be eaten, my uncle decided to show me how to clean my fish and cook it up for a meal. Unfortunately, I was scarred by the cleaning process that my tiny, harmless fish endured and was then unable to eat my fish. Or any fish after that for quite some time.

Years later, I am a fan of most fish, including salmon. But until Saturday, I had never seen a fish this large be butchered before my very eyes. Say hello to my little friend.

Ladies and gentleman, I hope you're prepared for graphic fish slicing images. While I cringed and backed away during the demonstration, I'll admit that it was actually pretty cool to watch. Chef cut one up first for us to see and then a few of my fellow chef-mates were allowed to pick up the knives and butcher away. I picked up my camera and snapped away instead.

Yes, his head is about to be chopped off with a chef''s knife and soon he'll look like his friend in the pan. The most tedious part of slicing up a fish is deboning it. Exhibit A...

And now I must ask - who's excited that I have started bringing my camera to class with me?? Hey, it may look gross, but this was one good hunk of fish meat. After the fish were sliced up, we all practiced sautéing and grilling slabs of them. Delicious. I guess I've grown up a bit since my fishing days. But I still won't put my own worm on a hook.

We also made lasagna with our homemade pasta from last weekend. We rolled our pasta dough out through a pasta roller -fun! - and then added meat and onions to our tomato sauce that we also made last week. Then we began layering sauce, noodles and ricotta cheese over and over. Fresh mozzarella went on the top layer.

  
We all devoured the lasagna for lunch and were able to take leftovers home. In case you're still trying to get images of raw fish out of your head, here's another shot of the fresh lasagna.

Chef also showed us how to make fresh sausage and breaded veal cutlets. Tasty fact: sausage should be made with at least 30% fat (such as pork butt) or it won't be any good. Since I'd like my personal body weight to contain less fat than that, I'm currently reconsidering my next pizza topping order. Although you really can't beat a slice of fennel sausage pizza right out of a brick oven from one of my fave local pizza places...mmm. I'll take that over fish guts any day.