...And He'll Eat For Like A Whole Weekend

So the epic fish saga continued; I originally intended to grind up the rest and make fish ball soup, because it's still dead cold out and a tangy, spicy soup seemed like a good plan. Also, it would have afforded me the opportunity to write "fish balls" numerous times in the post. But as is so often the case, I changed my mind come prep time, after a pretty painless sojourn to the store for the first wave of stocking up the week's vittles. Actually, it was the second wave, since I went to the butcher's yesterday. And so you're just going to have to suffer through a post in which I only mention fish balls about a third as many times as I would have if I had actually made fish balls.

The remaining varieties included pollock, cod, and turbot, and since we had turbot the other night I put that back in the fridge and cut the other two into regular-ish squares, then dredged them in seasoned flour. We had just enough oil to get about 3/4 inch deep in our smallest pan- I forgot to buy more- but the pieces were small enough that with one flip they'd cook just fine. The lack of oil did pose a problem for the tartar sauce I wanted, since I normally like to make mayonnaise with a neutral oil. But I used olive oil, with dribbles of both sesame and truffle, plus a little mustard, garlic scape pesto, yuzu juice, and a little liquid from a jar of cornichons, then folded in some minced cornichons. We had just run out of capers this morning as I used them up on a bagel with cream cheese and homemade fennely-spicy gravlax. It was worth it.

I used the mandoline to bang out some Japanese yam fries, and baked them with generous olive oil- shaking frequently- until they were nice and brown. Before dark, I ventured out into the frigid twilight and grabbed numbly at a variety of greens in the garden- kale, chard, mustard, and collards. They got a spin in the processor with garlic and just enough oil to make a thick pesto. I gave all the fish pieces another dredge in the flour mixture and fried them in batches until all were brown and beautiful. And that was dinnner; it's funny- after all that, in the picture they do kind of look a little like fish balls. Milo invented mixing green mash and tartar sauce together to make an even better sauce for yam and fish alike.