Fish Kitchen Nightmares

After all this talk of swimming with fish, it was only a matter of time before I had to cook one. And boy, did I ever get up close and personal.

Monday night, a friend called and asked me if I wanted a couple of fish that his friend had caught. Not being one to turn down free food, and always up for a cooking challenge, I accepted. Now there were two large fish staring at me when I opened the fridge. I couldn't tell you what they were. My friend said they were "Hein". But with his thick Bermudian accent, I'm still not sure if I have that right. I did a google search with all possible spellings, and nothing came up. But he said that they were his favourite, so I figured they must be good.

My instructions were to marinate the fish when I got up the next morning, and then just stick it in the oven in the evening. I was still quite unclear exactly what to do. Luckily, they'd been gutted and cleaned, so the dirty work had been taken care of. However, when I came to marinate my chosen fish, I ran into a little difficulty. We didn't have a pan big enough to hold the whole fish. I thought that if I removed the head and tail, it would fit. Cutting off the tail wasn't a problem. Cutting off the head was.

We have 2 big, sharp knives (or so I thought). Strategically holding the body, I began with one of these knives. What I didn't think of was the thick spine attaching the body to the head. It felt a little too macabre for my liking. I figured that I wouldn't end up being successful, so "cut" my losses (no pun intended), threw the butchered fish into a plastic bag with the marinade and left it in the fridge for the afternoon. For the rest of the day I tried to invite friends to come and help me eat this mammoth sea creature – OK, I exaggerate a little.

(In mid-sentence of typing this, there was a knock on our front door. I was handed... you guessed it... another fish from another friend. Our freezer over-floweth with fish. haha)

Anyways, back to yesterday's story.

I tried to research how best to cook this thing. From what I could tell, my best bet was to wrap the fish in tin foil and bake it. I guessed approximately at how long etc. One friend did come over, thank goodness. Although I had to put it back in the oven a few times, when it was finally done, it was quite tasty.