Tomato circle

Tomato circle

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Black Drum Fish

Once again we got some amazing fresh caught fish at our market today. We thought to try something new - a big white fish called a Black Drum.


Black Drum Fish from the Gulf of Mexico


Black drum are edible, with a moderate flavor and are not oily. Some restaurants in the southern US serve smaller black drum (puppy drum). Big drum can be challenging to clean; removing the large scales is a challenge. Many fishermen prefer to fillet with an electric knife, first removing the fillet from along the backbone, and then using the electric knife to cut the fillet from the skin and scales. Fish over 15 lbs can become tough and have a consistency comparable with chicken, rather than the flaky texture of many species of fish. Younger fish are often indistinguishable in flavor from red drum.

Once again - our dinner had a face. I know this photo is a little odd but I kinda liked the artsy aspect of the gray fish against the black and white tray with the red spilling out. Art in the kitchen!


My big eyes and lips freaked Mindy out




Here is nice black and white of him in case the red really turned you off.


    
Still has big eyeballs



We have baked many whole fish before but wanted to try something new so we put the whole fish onto our Weber grill. After Mike spent a long time getting all the scales off - we rubbed him with lots of oil, herbs and thinly sliced lemons.


Sliced sides and filled the belly

We also made slices into the skin of the fish and inserted the lemons, oil and fresh herbs directly into the slits.


Seasoning him up


We cooked him for about 40 min on the grill on a low/med heat. I thought the taste was good - a white fish but maybe a bit bland which was surprising due to how much we seasoned it. Overall a good fish to bring home for a high yield of meat that can be used in many ways!


Root Soup - cheap and tasty!

I hope your not getting tired of posts that are about SUPER finds from our farmers market. Once again, my hope in posting things about what we get at the market is that is makes it more relateable and more possible for you to try in your life too!

In early spring - root vegetables that have grown under the ground all winter are prevalent at the market. Johnson's Backyard offers a large bag of mixed  ROOT veggies for $4. I thought I would grab a bag and see if I could make a tasty and affordable soup.

Bag of Roots

In my $4 grab bag, I got Carrots, Turnips, Kohlrabi, Beets and Onions. I washed them all and peeled them - chopping them into similar sized squares. After doing some recipe research most people suggested that I roasted the veggies first rather than boiling them. So, I mixed everything together in the roaster pan and tossed in some olive oil, garlic and salt & pepper.

Roasted Veggies     





I put the oven to 400 degrees and let them cook for 40 min. I like my roasted veggies with a good scorch on them so if you don't, cook them for 30 min instead. In a large pot, I added chicken broth and then the roasted root veggies. I let the pot simmer for 1 hour and added salt to taste.

Veggie Soup


I thought it came out very good - it turned really red due to the beets so the second time I made this soup, I left out the beets. I probably spent a total of $6 and it made a clean healthy soup for many days! I suggest you give it a try!!

But it has a cute face - Guineafowl

 Every once in awhile my dinner around here is served to me with a face. The eyes and mouth or beak still intact. Its something that I am getting used to but I am very grateful that Mike will hack off the head with a knife cause there is no way I can do that!! This lil hen had a pretty cute face.

Little face


I literally had to look up Guinea Hens on Wiki to see what the heck to do with this special bird.

Guineafowl have a long history of domestication, mainly involving the Helmeted Guineafowl; in the UK they were usually known as "gleanies". The young (called "keets") are very small at birth. The keets are kept in a brooder box inside the house until about six weeks of age, before being moved into a proper coop or enclosure. They eat lice, worms, ants, spiders, weedseeds, and ticks while on range, or they can also eat chicken layer crumbles (one kind of commercial bird feed) while housed in a coop. The cooked flesh of guineafowl resembles chicken in texture, with a flavour somewhere between chicken and turkey.

After searching many recipes - the best bet seemed to go with covering it in butter and many herbs and spices!

butter and seasonings

I roasted it in the oven at 400 degrees for 1 hour. He came out tasting just like a little chicken. Which was very tasty but I will probably skip buying a Guinea Hen in the future because my Chickens are larger and they never have a face. Thats a plus!