The Little, Simple, Forgotten Things - Meat and Fish Part 3!

A closing to this post series (for now atleast!).

We'll venture into the side of poultry and seafood. Poultry in alot of ways is so incredibly utilized. Think about it, you get a whole chicken and break it down into eight pieces (or whatever your heart desires) and in the end your left with a carcass. So you cut some mirepoix, through that carcass in a pot with water and make stock. But move towards a duck per say and your yield is less just because of the animal. A ducks structure is different than a chickens and its hard to use a whole duck because of how much fat is on one animal. If your good, you'll render all the fat and have duck fat laying around in house to cook with. You can roast the bones and make brown stock, but I found a tasty treat with duck. Duck wings, now it might sound odd since every American is used to a typical hot wing being that of a chicken but duck wings. Yes you get alittle less meat on the bone BUT you have a powerful, flavorful crispy skin when fried and not only that, but a pound of them starts at 80 cents. The real question is do you have the customers who would eat that, etc, the list could go on but duck wings I've found to be a hidden gem.

Seafood is something that I love alot and a properly cooked piece of fish can be outstanding and beautiful. We talk here at school about fish sustainability, and eating fish that are in full populations and leaning away from tuna and such but also really crappy fish like farm raised Atlantic Salmon and such. But out there, there are some fish that are amazing (getting a customer market to go outside to try them is another story but you can always try). Skate isn't really a fish, its a ray and the cut itself looks like a ray (the only edible part) and when cooked correctly, its amazing, soft, tender, moist, like a greatly cooked piece of fish should be. Last time I checked from Foley's Fish, uncleaned skate was 95 cents a pound and cleaned was 1.50 a pound so its super inexpensive. Looking at some fatty and oily fish, sardines are delicious. Not a fish I would have every night of the week but they are inexpensive and taste good but it all comes back to selling them to your customers. But a cut I find amazing, fish collar. Now they typically come off of yellowfish and over in Japan, they are like our chicken wings, they are once again inexpensive and the name is call Hamachi. Literally all you do is grill them and then crisp the skin in the oven, enjoy with rice wine vinegar and grated dikon and its a snack, its bar food! If your a home cook its easy for you to make this but in a restaurant operation, its all about whether your customers would eat it.

That wraps up this blog series (for now like I said) and I'm always game to talking about concepts so leave a comment or if you have a question do the same!

-Garrett