July 2008

I love fish. If I had to choose what type of meat I would like to have in my plate for dinner, I would choose fish/seafood, pork, lamb, chicken and beef. I think this is because I have lived all my life (or, at least, those years I have recollection of) in coastal cities. I remember, back in Panama, my mother was able to secure really fresh seafood (she knew some of the fishmongers). When I went there for holidays last year, I accompanied her to the Mercado de Marisco (seafood market) every other morning and look for the catch of the day. Oh, and by “catch of the day”, I do mean the catch of the day, as in caught less than 12 hours ago. Unlike in North America, there is no freeze for X hours before you can put it for sale.

Since Panama is near the tropics and the waters are warmer, the fish variety you can find there is completely different to the ones you can find here. Among my favourites are pargo (sort of a red snapper), corvina (sort of a white sea bass) and guavina (sometimes spelled guabina). Most of the time they were “small” fishes, 20 to 30 cm (8″ to 12″); however, specially for corvina, it might be easily as large as half meter if not more. I don’t recall ever seeing tuna (or atun as it is know) but I have my hunches as to why.

As for cooking the fish, if it is fresh, there is only one option: steamed. In fact, preparation is extremely simple and needs only a couple of ingredients:

• Fish (medium size), cleaned
• Cornstarch
• Ginger
• Green onion
• Garlic
• soy sauce (for this recipe, I prefer light soy sauce)
• Oil (canola or peanut)
• Salt and pepper (optional!)

In a wok (preferably) or another wide pan with cover, boil some water and put a metal frame at the bottom. Make some slits and lightly dust it with cornstarch. Cut some thin strips of ginger and green onion. Put them in the strips of ginger in the slits. Fill the cavity with some uncut green onion. Set them aside on a plate. When the water starts to boil, put the plate on top of the metal frame and cover. Depending on the size of the fish, it might take anytime between 10~12 minutes. To be sure, do the “flake test” – take a fork and try gently to remove a morsel, if it flakes, it is ready. In the meantime, in a saucepan on medium heat, warm around 125 mL of oil (1/2 cup). When it starts to heat up, drop two or three cloves of garlic and allow it to lightly brown (if it starts to “fry”, then the oil is too hot). Once the fish is cooked, move the fish to another clean plate. Remove the ginger and green onions inside the cavity. Sprinkle the freshly chopped green onions, ginger, salt and pepper (optional) and soy sauce. And, now, the “dangerous part” (and I do mean it): pour the hot oil on top of the fish. It should lightly “fry” the green onions and the fish skin and mix with the soy sauce. Serve with your favourite leafy greens (I prefer nappa cabbage or Chinese mustard) and steamed rice.

On some other cases, when the fish was “not fresh enough”, other applications include pan-searing. However, once in a while, I venture myself and tried fish “Panamanian style” – to be more specific, fried fish. Now, this is not your British “style” (if you can call it that way), batter fish, as in fish-and-chips. Instead, it resembles more the Jamaican Escoveitch fish; probably due to the Caribbean influence in Panama. I never managed to obtain a recipe for it but, from my observation, it involves dark meat type fish, slit it and fill it with herbs (including culantro, a native herb also known as sawtooth coriander). Once done, lightly dust it with flour and fry them until done. When I finally moved to Canada, I knew “fresh” fish wasn’t really “fresh” (See comment about freezing the fish); however, I did not expect it to hit a real low either. I have tried the recipe above for steamed fish and it simply does not work as well. Now, it is possible I am finger pointing the incorrect suspect (freezing), while it is possible it is due to the type of fish itself. But, in the end, I want my fish and only have these options:

1. Steamed fish at a Chinese restaurant. A workable solution but I like to prefer to cook it myself, which leads to…
2. Buy a live fish at a local supermarket. Workable also but I don’t like tilapia (the only one I “easily” available at local Chinese supermarkets).
3. Go to a Japanese restaurant. That is OK but other than an all-you-can-eat, I can’t imagine myself satisfying my craving for fish in a regular sushi restaurant. Also, this is raw fish, not steamed fish.
4. Go to your local White Spot/Moxie’s/Earl’s/similar restaurants and order salmon. OK, is an option… To an extent. To me, though, I want the whole fish! Probably a Jamaican place might be an option (see escoveitch remark above).
5. Fish-and-chips.

Ah, fish-and-chips, the last resort… Unfortunately, this brings me to my pet peeve on fish-and-chip places in the lower mainland: cod is the fish mostly used for fish-and-chips. Nothing wrong with that (well, except for it being over-fished). However, I have been to a good list of fish-and-chip places and in all of them it has been partially disappointing. Unless I add tons of vinegar/lemon juice and/or tartar sauce, the fish tastes underseasoned. Was that the intent? Well, if it is, I am disappointed. Of course, it is possible I did not go to the really good places (for reference purposes, been to Moby Dick in White Rock, Cockney’s in New Westminster and several in Steveston)

In the end, I have almost resigned myself that’s the only thing I will get here and if I want pargo, corvina or guavina, I will have to fly to Panama. Said all that, which is your favourite fish place? I would like to give it a try!