Story of a Snapper

As I sat on the sofa, bathed in sunshine and patiently tapping away on my laptop, working on my Year Overview (since school IS starting next week) I heard the familiar noise of our gate clanging.  Wondering who was about to try to sell us something, I jumped up and ran to the door.  Happily, I found the boy from next door on the step, and his father waving a fish at me from across the garden. 

I hastily pulled the boy inside and loaded his arms up with spring onions and tomatoes and followed him outside, to where his father kindly presented me with a beautiful Australian snapper.  He said he'd been out fishing today. 

This is not our actual fish, but a remarkable likeness of it.  I had fishy hands, so could not document the journey of descaling, gutting and cooking the fish - I know you're disappointed. (source)

I thanked him profusely and proceeded to scour the internet for instructions on how to descale and gut the fish (secretly, I was hoping Phillip would say "Don't worry about it dear, just put it on ice and I'll do it when I get home."  No such luck.) 

So I took it outside and the scales flew everywhere!  (Thank you to the website that advised me to do it outside.)  When I took a shower later, I even found one stuck on my chest (ick... that's the last time I wear a summer dress when descaling a fish.) 

Then I gutted it.  Bigger ick.  I could feel my dad looking down at me and shaking his head and laughing at me.  As a child, I enjoyed fishing with my dad.  Some of my fondest memories are of these trips - but I always disappeared when it came to the gutting of the fish.  I remember Dad telling me that I had to learn one day... And I would flippantly respond as I skipped away "Why?  When will I ever need to know how to do this?  You can always do it for me!"  Oh, how I ate my words today.  I yelled up the stairs and begged Mum to come down and watch over me.  She came, advised and I gutted. 

So after all that, I pulled a half-ripe lemon off the tree and rubbed the fish all over with half the lemon (inside and out), scored the fish on both sides, stuffed some butter in the cavity and scores, and rubbed it with some Robertson's Fish Spice (so yummy).  I put some slices of lemon on top, wrapped it up in tinfoil and popped it in the oven at 180 degrees for about 35-40 minutes.  Next time (if they are kind enough to give us another fish) I've already decided that I will rub it with salt, pepper, lemon, crushed garlic and maybe some fish spice.  It just needed a bit extra.  

Here it is - I had to flip it over because we were 'testing' it out of the oven, so it wasn't very pretty, and to be honest, I think the whole fish, head and all is quite terrifying looking and no one needs to see that.  It was REALLY tasty though!

Because today wasn't challenging enough in the kitchen, I decided to make pesto this evening too.  More on that tomorrow - I'm planning to put it with some pasta and what's left of our petit poisson.