Yesterday our farmers' market opened! Today we went! We bought smelt — three whole smelt. I simmered them silly and we ate them up. Yum.
We ate all of them. And I don't mean all three, though that's true; I mean all parts. Fins. Bones. Head. Eyes. Guts. And — because we bought three females — roe.
Here, Mark Sisson recommends "Tiny whole fish with heads and guts", noting "Anytime you can eat the entire animal, you should."
(Guess which three items on that list I do not regularly eat?)
My preparation was inspired by something in The Herbal Palate Cookbook (which was a sore disappointment overall but gave me two great ideas). I used my just-made fish broth and added coconut milk, dried lemongrass, garlic, lime juice, and salt. I used a Thai red curry paste: red chili pepper, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, salt, shallot, spices, kaffir lime. As you can see I fortified some of the flavors.
Near the end I added pencil-thin asparagus and tiny cuts of broccoli florets.
Bjørnatron loved it and I will be making it again for sure. Next time maybe I'll add crab. I discovered source for it locally — conveniently, it's on our walk to the market!
The rest of our haul: 2 bags of nettles, 2 bunches of miner's lettuce, and 1 bunch of chives.
That sounds delicious. I accidentally read The Herbal Palate Cookbook as The Herbal PIRATE Cookbook. I think maybe we should hang out and actually write that book because it wouldn't be a sore disappointment.
ReplyDelete