Thursday, January 13, 2011

fish tale

finally, after over a year in Nicaragua, getting great fish is easy! The lake bass in Granada were tasty, but spiny, hard to filet, the Mojarra were small & not good served raw or even medium cooked. My first few weeks on Little Corn the fishing was horrible (due to poor weather). This week Chris, the fisherman that we work with, caught some enormous kingfish mackerel for me to cook up! One of our gardening staff brought up the fish after the late boat came in- and I put fish on the menu for the following day! Two of the fish had the tails cut off because they wouldn’t fit in the cooler- huge (you should have seen the one that got away...)!
oh: Did I mention that we have no electric refrigeration at the hotel? The current system is a series of coolers that are emptied, cleaned, refilled with ice and food products daily. 
... 2:30am ... i hear outside my room:
“Calley.”
“yes?”
“It’s me, Dixon.”
“okay, hi Dixon. what do you need?”
“Do you have the keys to the lodge?”
“Yes, why do you need to get into the lodge?”
“The fish is not on ice, and I need to filet it and move it into the indoor cooler that has ice.”
“(ugh) okay, hang on.”
... stumbling out of bed, finding a jacket (yes, jacket- it’s been stormy at night, and “cold.”), we walk over to the lodge together.
thanks for saving the fish, Dixon. maybe next time, you can let me know that the fish isn’t on enough ice at 6pm after you bring it up from Chris’ boat. I suppose I’m to blame- I didn’t see the fish once they were put in the cooler. lesson learned...
...and ceviche made! A simple simple recipe: I cubed the fresh fish, tossed it with lime juice, orange juice, bell chiles, onion, garlic, salt and tabasco. Right now I’m serving it all day as a snack. Dinner tonight is seared filet over eggplant, zucchini, fresh tomatoes and ricotta pasta. 
 dig in!

1 comment:

  1. Fresh as fresh can be! Sounds delicious. Amazing what you are able to create on so little sleep!

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