Smooth-hound and scorpionfish

First post here! And of course, it will deal with fish!

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!