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Cooking the Catch
DURING THE OUTDOOR season, just as soon as the angleworms begin to chirp, Friday is twice as much fish day as in winter. Not because we eat double when something beside eels, cod and frost fish are running, but because Friday marks the beginning of the end the week end-when all our thoughts and fancies lightly turn to hook and sinker. Maybe not all, but pretty near, for last year 13,000,000 fish and game licenses were issued and yet only a fraction of our sea and inland waters require permits for whipping them with a line.
So the dawn of every holiday lights up a forest of fishing poles moving by car, bus, leg, train, boat, even airplane, to the most likely holes and shoals. Alert in spite of the hour, clear-eyed and fresh-skinned, already breathing deeply while the rest of the world snores, men and women alike (but the women only a salting of one in ten) lug their own gear and impedimenta to the casting grounds. California beaches are alive with sanddabbers; Pikes Peakers stop their yodeling to sneak up on mountain pools, fix live field mice on tiny rafts and push them slyly out into the current to lure the rainbow trout. A surfeit of surf casters, trollers, stream-wading fly flickerers.
The whir of the first cast! Splash of the first plummet! Boy! What a strike! Somebody has amateurishly left the ratchet locked on his reel and will ruin it. Alas, amateurs, like blowfish, crabs and conger eels, are always with us, getting everything tangled, trying to bait up with one of our eyes as we glare at a mere woman who just can't bear to slice a juicy bloodworm.
Of course any fisherman, or fisherwoman who can bait her own hook, can also cook the catch to epicurean perfection. So all equipment for salt or fresh-water sport should be divided into three equal parts, catching kit, cooking kit and the little brown jug-or better still, dry white wine which serves as well for cooking fish as for drinking with it. But even if you forego the first division in favor of the marketman, one of these crisp autumn days you'll find yourself hankering for a camp cooking kit. It won't be complete without bottle, skillet, grill, a long two-tined fork, a brace of lemons, plenty of bacon, a covey of onions and tomatoes, a fistful of Italian parsley (flat-leaved and tastier than the curly), some saffron, dry sage, fresh dill, capers, salt, paprika and black pepper in a grinder. And don't forget the shashlik skewers either-for what grasshoppers are to bass, fish shashlik is to you.
Squat any angler down before a brisk wood fire with a lapful of skewers, plenty of fresh-caught fish, a carving knife, and he'll know just what to do. He may never have heard of shashlik, yet instinctively he'll fillet the fish, cut it into toothsome hunks and slice bacon squares to match, alternately running them through with a skewer. Hunched over his caveman coals he'll thread on beads of bacon, fish and tomatoes in turn, as though his very life depended on it, rotating the joystick like a witch, his lips working with incantations while the juicy flesh is broiled to a blushing burnt sienna. Then he'll season it with parsley, sage or a sprinkling of fresh dill flowers, crushed.
STICK FISH The experienced camp cook will vary shashlik with "stick fish" by digging a short, shallow trench about a foot deep, and making therein a sweet-smelling fire with plenty of dry hardwood. This savory ceremony begins just as soon as the blaze has died down to searing coals. Meanwhile the catch gets cleaned somehow, all gills removed, but heads left on. The skin is scored deep, and salt, pepper, chopped Italian parsley, oil, bacon grease or butter, rubbed in. A strip or two of bacon, skewered firmly in place, gives automatic basting and blessing, for most fish are too dry. All but herring and the Alaska candlefish cry for bacon. Cut a stick for each fish, three or four feet long and as big around as a kid's eyes when he lands his first sucker. Sharpen both ends to sloping billiard cue points, run the fish through from the gaping mouth, along the belly cavity and out by the backbone as near as you can to the tail. The fish must be slid down until firmly impaled, for it's almost as tragic to let it fall off into the fire as to lose it overboard. Jab the other stick point deep in the ground at the trench edge, to bring the thickest part of the meat closest to the coals. The stick must be slightly inclined so no heat is wasted, and space left for occasional turning.
If the cook really knows his stuff he'll heave in a bale of sage at the finish to smother the panting coals and send up a cloud of celestial incense that permeates the broilers all the way to the wishbone and gives just that added zest. It's the trick of the Marseilles fishercooks who send broiled merlan or mackerel sizzling to the table in a scented shroud of sage smoke.
Two campfire methods are buried in this essay: fish shashlik on skewers, and "stick fish" broiled upright beside a trench of coals. Both depend on coals rather than flame, and on bacon to make up for lean flesh.
- Wait for the coalsNeither method works over a live blaze. Build the fire well ahead and start only when the wood has burned down to a bed of glowing coals with no visible flame, or the skin will char before the interior sets.
- The trenchThe text calls for a short, shallow trench about a foot deep. Jab the stick in at the trench edge so the thickest part of the meat is closest to the coals, only slightly inclined as the recipe says, with space left for occasional turning. No distance from the coals or turning interval is given.
- Choose the sticks carefullyUse green hardwood -- maple, hickory, alder, fruitwood. Avoid pine, spruce, cedar and oleander: resinous woods taint the flesh and oleander is poisonous. A dry stick will burn through and drop the fish.
- DonenessThe recipe gives no times. Whole fish of about a pound take roughly 15 to 20 minutes total on the stick; skewered chunks take 8 to 10. Cook until the flesh is opaque to the bone and flakes at the thickest point, 145F on an instant-read thermometer.
- Cut the shashlik to matchFish and bacon should be cut in pieces of similar size, around 1 1/2 inches, so they finish together. Firm-fleshed fish -- swordfish, tuna, monkfish, mahi, thick bass fillets -- hold on a skewer; flounder, sanddab and small trout fall apart and belong on the stick or in a hinged grill basket.
- Scoring and baconThe deep scores let seasoning and rendered fat reach the flesh, and the skewered bacon strip is the basting. Modern thin-sliced bacon burns quickly over coals; thick-cut works better, and its smoke does much of the seasoning work here.
- CandlefishThe Alaska candlefish is the eulachon, a smelt so oily it was once dried and burned as a taper. It is scarce now and runs are restricted in many rivers -- take the reference as a note on fat content, not a shopping suggestion. The recipe exempts only herring and candlefish from bacon; other oily fish such as mackerel, sardines and bluefish are similarly rich.
- The sage finishThe bundle of dry sage thrown on the coals at the end is smoke seasoning, not fuel. Use a loose handful of dried stems, or fresh sage or fennel branches, and let the fish sit in the smoke for a minute or two off direct heat. Green herbs smolder longer and give a sweeter smoke.
- Kit and yieldItalian parsley is flat-leaf parsley; "dill flowers" are the yellow umbels, stronger than the fronds. Figure one whole fish of about a pound per person for stick fish, or 6 to 8 ounces of trimmed fish per skewer.