I mentioned a little while ago that I did some re-decorating of my tropical fish tank, and I showed a picture of one of the two gouramis in the tank.
So you can imagine how excited I was to find cleaned and frozen gourami at the MT Asian supermarket.
Aside from being several times as large, and headless, they bore a striking resemblance to my pets. I’ve never eaten an animal that I’ve kept as a pet before.
And here’s how I did it:
I found a recipe online which I adapted (it’s as much a staple of food in SE Asia as it is a staple of aquarium stores here). I cut several angled slashes into the side of the fish, and rubbed in a marinating unguent of garlic, chili sesame oil, salt and pepper. Then I fried it on high heat.
It tasted extremely good. This might be my new favorite freshwater fish. Better even than walleye. My food-frakking deputy, Julia, agreed that it’s a wonderful-tasting fish.
I was worried that it would be tough to eat. As a kid I would sometimes eat sunnies that had been scaled and fried whole, but this had not been scaled and it was much smaller than anything I’ve eaten (other than smelt or sardines). If I had caught a fish this size I would have thrown it back.
But the flesh peeled away from the bones lickety-split, and the scaled skin was particularly delicious and crisp.
It’s left me wondering how some of my other pets might taste.
I think the cat is technically free-range organic.