Sardines (Pre-cooking)

Okay, so I haven't cooked them yet but I need some therapy. I just beheaded and gutted my very first fish. All those fish previous to this have already been done for me, in the sense that I didn't have to do any of the actual work apart from cooking them... But then came Sardines.

There's been a lot of hoopla about sardines in recent years. Probably for a number of reasons not excluding that sardines are high in Omega3s, a renewable-fish-resource, they're yummy... Apparently the best in the US come from California. I got mine from a fish guy on Howard who I'm not sure I trust, and therefore not sure that I trust the fish, but they were frozen and looked alright for the most part.

Here might be my first mistake... Find a fish guy you trust, especially living in the midwest. I mean, most seafood that we eat today has been previously flash frozen on the boat from which it was caught. SO really ALL seafood you see at Whole-Paycheck is from a frozen status. That's right. FROZEN. The only place you can get real fresh seafood is on the coast...and sometimes not even then, so swallow your pride and just get the frozen stuff.

So we're going to assume I have confidence in my neighbor fish guy. These puppies actually look okay! I took them out of their bag and thawed them in the sink under cool water. I think I've mentioned before that I have no patience for letting things thaw slowly... probably yet another mistake. Whatever. So the fish are in the sink and they are looking at me. This is not fun. I have to behead them and remove their entrails. YUCK.

And so I took one and chopped off it's head.... and I screamed.

So basically no one told me how much gunk there is inside a fish. I mean I knew they had to have working bits inside... All the red stuff though. ugh. One site told me I had to use my fingers to get the entrails out. No. No no no. No way. I used a knife. If you ever want to eat fish again do not use your fingers. It's gross. I used a knife and then pulled out what I could, sliced them down the belly to scrape the rest and now...

They actually look quite pretty. I'm quite pleased. Oh yeah, so we're grilling them tonight. I'll send word how they are. If this is my last posting, you'll know I have died from something fish related. Go find the fish guy on Howard and chew him out please.