I'm lucky to live close to the coast, meaning I
have access to some interesting (and fresh!) species, and I visit various
fishstores on a regular basis to see if I can find some nice specimens to work
on.
So last week I came home with two guys:
First a common smooth-hound (Mustelus
mustelus). This triakid shark is found mainly in the eastern atlantic and
mediterranean, and can grow to an average of 1.2 meter.
This specimen is a juvenile female around 60 cm
long.
Close up of the mouth area, showing the nasal
flaps, ampullae of Lorenzini, and jaws bearing small, closely imbricated
crushing teeth.
I don't get whole sharks on a regular basis
(well, except for the catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), which is kind of
difficult to work on, but more on that in a later post), so I planned right
ahead to clean the whole skeleton. As chondrichthyans skeletons are
cartilaginous, the cleaning process is very different from when dealing with
bony skeletons, and mainly involves manual scraping of the flesh.
Second fish of the day is this beautiful red
scorpionfish (Scorpaena scrofa). This is quite a large fish, which can reach 3
kilograms. This specimen is a little over 1 kilogram, but still impressive. They must be handled with care because of the
sharp and pointy bones of the skull, but mostly for the 12 spines it sports on
its back, which are venomous.
Whole fish prior to initial preparation and dinner!
Close up on the spines. Those are venomous, and
the skin cover is easily torn away, exposing the long spines.
Close up of the head. Cheeks are missing
because I ate them as well.
Scorpionfish are really tasty, and this is one of
those nice occasions when you can get a great specimen and good dinner at the
same time. This one will be cleaned by maceration, as with
most of the fish I do.
Stay tuned for updates on their preparation!
