Cleaning stuff out of my parent’s place took much longer than anticipated.  I was starving, so on my way back downtown I swung by Church’s Chicken.  Armed with a BOGO coupon, I was going to order 2 Guacamole Wraps wolf one down and head home to unload the car.

But since it was later in the afternoon, they had to make my wraps and I had to wait a few minutes.  I had seen the pickup truck when I pulled into the parking lot, but hadn’t paid it much mind.   Standing around, I noticed a steady stream of people going up to it and walking away.   The manager mentioned they were selling fish and I went out to check it out.

$15 for a large and $10 for a small – I got one of the larger ones and took it home.   Impulse purchase – I didn’t even ask what kind of fish!

Worst part of getting a freshly caught fish – scaling and cleaning.  Used the cleaver to scrape off the scales – they got everywhere!   Should really do this kind of thing outside.

Much to my surprise, the fish was full of roe.   Pulled that out and proceeded to fillet.   I love my chinese cleaver, but it really is not very good at filleting fish.  I suppose that’s why they sell fillet knives!   Pretty sure this is the second fish I’ve ever prepped, so I don’t think it’s a bad job:

Things for the future:  1)  Buy some needle-nose pliers.   Pin bones are enough of a bitch to pull out without tools that are coming apart on you.  2)  Buy/acquire a fillet knife

I was starving by the time I was done.  Fortunately, the rice I had put on was done.  I cut some roe out of the lump, put it on rice with wasabi and soy sauce:

To be honest, not all that good.  Very rich but kinda stringy.  Usually, when I make things at home, it’s at least as good as your average restaurant.  This was far from even an Ikura Don from a crummy japanese restaurant in Vancouver.  Since it wasn’t all that great and I had a lot of it, I went online to figure out how long it would keep and how to prep it.

So I learned that Ikura isn’t just roe – it’s prepared/brined.  That’s why you get the awesome salty flavour as they pop in your mouth.  The skein holds the eggs together and needs to be separated.

My method:

1)  Soak in hot salty water – hot to the touch.  For me, this was just hot tap water.  The eggs will change colour and go a little opaque.  The internet said not to worry, this just toughens up the eggs up since you’ll need to be a little rough with them to separate them from each other and the skein.

2)  Once separated, rinse gently to get rid of any stringy bits.   Add a teaspoon of non iodized salt(ideally sea salt) and mix.   Put in fridge for 30mins.

3)  Add another half teaspoon of salt, mix and then pour into a sieve and let stand in the  fridge for an hour.

Finished Product:

This really was good.  Very happy with it.   I froze one fillet and the other skein of eggs for another day.  This still left me with the head/spine.  Normal thing to do when you have a resource like this is to make stock.   Unfortunately, salmon is really too strong tasting to make into stock that’s much use for anything that doesn’t taste like salmon.

I threw everything in a pan, roasted it in the oven for 30 minutes before putting it in a pot with browned shallots, ginger, garlic and a carrot.  Adding a can of tomatoes made a very tasty soup.   But not entirely thinking clearly, I had included all the bones – including the tiny pin bones.  This ended up producing a very dangerous dish.  Lots of things to choke on.  Next time, I’ll still stick to the formula – make stock from the bones/scraps.  Strain/filter and then make soup with that.  But considering how much meat I have in the fridge/freezer, it’ll be a while before I do this again.

Learned a few things so not the disaster it could have been.   I’d say it was $15 well spent.