Going Outside Your Comfort Zone - Passmore Ranch's Black Bass

So on my most recent adventure into the unknown I attempted and succeeded in choosing, cleaning, gutting and preparing my own fish. Now I can cook passably well in most situations, but I've been looking for new culinary horizons. Now for anyone working on a line, or fishing in a boat this is nothing big, but for an accomplished menu order-er and girly girl by many peoples standards this was way outside the comfort zone. 

But if I'm going to eat it, I'm trying to not be overly hypocritical by doing all that it takes to get to the plate too, and have come to quite a many conclusions in this particular adventure. 

1. Butchering is a skill, and takes a mentor (relative, friend, teacher, video guide, blog instructions)  - to go after a fish without any prior knowledge will leave you with very little yield
2. Having good, sharp knives can never be underestimated - a sharp fillet knife could save your fingers, a dull knife could cost you them
3. When you buy a 1lb fish you DO NOT get 1lb of meat, you get 60% meat if your really good at what your doing, 20-30% meat if your not
   

So heading down to the farmers market with no prior intentions I was thinking about something good to make for dinner. Now ever since the article in Edible Sacramento by Amber Stott (depicting how easy it is to get/clean/cook your own fish) I wanted to try this fish-thing myself. So after talking to "boss lady" down at the farmers market fish tanks I picked out the lucky fish, and the "boss lady" koncked it on the head (but it was still wiggling?), and put it in a bag and I was on my way to the potato people and to get some herbs. 

Now it kinda took some courage up to do this, cause it's gross work and your REALLY in your food, but I was trying to be up to the challenge, take initiative. Hank Shaw writes a wonderful blog entitled "Hunter Angler Gardener Cook - finding the forgotten feast"  all about wild to table, so I was not taking a huge risk picking out my own farm raised fish and cleaning it in my apartment kitchen, or so I thought. 

So getting my fish out of the bag, I put it in the sink to start cleaning off the scales and turned the water on to a slow drip to clean the scales. That's when things got exciting, the fish wasn't dead and started flopping all over the place and freaked me out. I screamed my bloody head off and then focused on the fact the fish was suffering so grabbed it and knocked it on the head to make sure it was out. Officially. 

The next part was gross and hard work, I should have watched the fish cleaning guide videos on youtube FIRST.  So in the end I kept all my fingers, found out my knives severely need to be sharpened, and there's an easy way and a hard way to clean a fish. I did it the hard way. 

I can see the obstacle that Passmore Ranch has in front of them, this is challenging work, and not for the tender-hearted. But the fish is wonderfully fresh, and that's something that you can't always buy. So as for this diva-girl I might attempt this challenge again, when I attain a better fillet knife, but until then I'm going to keep up that great relationship I have with Oto's and Whole Foods fish monger and never again underestimate the skill that it takes one to clean and correctly fillet a fish.