Chapter 1061 Oval Pomfret
When Montraser returned to Xiao Peng's side, she saw Xiao Peng placing a large fish on the chopping board, ready to be processed. She quickly put away her worries, smiled, and raised the plate in her hand: "Sir, look at the mushrooms I picked!"
Xiao Peng looked up and said, "So few? You've been out for so long I thought you'd picked all the mushrooms on the island! Besides, we have some here. Where did you go?"
Montraser's expression froze, and he quickly said, "I just saw a very beautiful bird, and I got distracted by it!"
Xiao Peng laughed after hearing this and said, "I didn't expect you were also a birdwatching enthusiast! It's no wonder you were distracted. This is Bird Island, your paradise! I didn't realize you had such a hobby before."
Montraser laughed awkwardly and said, "This isn't a good time for bird watching, is it?"
Xiao Peng nodded and said, "Indeed, there aren't that many tools."
"Birdwatching" means watching birds, which is actually a healthy and expensive outdoor sport: if you want to watch birds, you have to go outdoors, and if you want to observe different birds, you have to go to different places. This will make birdwatching enthusiasts involuntarily have the idea of traveling, and make birdwatching enthusiasts want to get closer to nature; and "birdwatching" is also a way to solve social phobia. After all, you can make friends from all walks of life.
Of course, like fishing, this sport is a money-burning endeavor. Both fishing and birdwatching are highly addictive. Anglers will invest in ever-better fishing gear, while birdwatchers will buy better binoculars, more expensive cameras, better lenses, more valuable bird guides, and more advanced outdoor gear. They may even develop an irresistible urge to travel to birdwatching hotspots around the world.
Xiao Peng called this place a "Bird Island" because there are no natural enemies of birds on the island, so many birds live here, and migratory birds also use it as a resting place during their migration.
Xiao Peng ignored her and took a knife to scrape the scales off the oval pomfret. Similar to pomfret, oval pomfret has a layer of extremely fine scales on the surface. Many people do not scrape the scales when cooking pomfret, but Xiao Peng did it anyway. Although scraping off this layer of scales is a more complicated procedure, it can greatly reduce the fishy smell of the fish.
After rinsing the fine scales, Xiao Peng cut the fish head completely along the gills, splitting it in half. He then cleaned the gills and other parts of the fish and set the two large fish heads aside. Once he was done, Xiao Peng sliced the fish meat diagonally into bone-in fillets. He cut the belly separately and set it aside. He then placed the two fish heads and a few pieces of bone-in fish from the fins together, sprinkled them with salt, and snapped his fingers: "Done!"
Paula was stunned: "Can we eat it now? Can we eat it raw?"
Xiao Peng laughed. "When I said finished, I meant the preparations were done! Now let's start cooking! Paula, add some firewood!"
They could only burn firewood on the island. Although there was a lot of dry firewood, it was very damp because it was the rainy season. When it was lit, black smoke came out and choked Bao La to cough.
"It feels like my childhood!" Xiao Peng laughed. After the fire was big, Xiao Peng put the pot on the fire to heat it up, then scooped a piece of white grease from the plastic box on the side and put it into the pot. The grease melted quickly.
The seasonings found from the shipwreck this time were all in unopened packages, but unfortunately, the peanut oil on the ship had been opened by Xiao Peng and could no longer be used.
The soul of Chinese food is oil! Without oil, you'd be in trouble.
But Xiao Peng has a way!
There was once an interesting TV show where a French chef and a Chinese chef competed in a culinary showdown. To enhance the show, each chef was allowed to take one item from the other's kitchen. The Chinese chef took shrimp from the French chef, while the French chef took the Chinese chef's oil! The French chef, knowing Chinese cuisine, knew that the essence of Chinese cuisine is oil. "Take away the oil, and you're going to compete with me?"
As a result, when he found that his Chinese opponent chef continued to cook with oil without any effect, the French chef flew into a rage and insisted that the Chinese chef was cheating. He even went to complain to the referee. When he saw the Chinese chef using a piece of fat pork to make oil in front of him, he was completely dumbfounded.
A top French chef doesn't know how to refine animal fat? The audience in front of the TV laughed at him after the show was broadcast.
This is actually related to dietary habits: Europe has consumed vegetable oils since ancient times. Thousands of years ago, olive oil was a key commodity in Mediterranean trade. But animal oil? This was a dietary habit only found in the high-latitude, cold regions of Northern and Eastern Europe.
There are no mammals on the island, so where does the animal oil come from?
It's a bit horrifying: it came from an African fur sea lion, also known as the 'Cape fur seal'.
Why are there so many sharks around this island? It's because some African fur sea lions breed here. They prey on young sea lions, sometimes even attacking large ones en masse. Xiao Peng collects some of the sea lion fat from their mouths to make oil.
This is also a method learned from the tribes in West Africa.
Many people say that "whale oil" and "sea beast" oils are inedible. In the past, these oils were used by Europeans to make soap, lighting and industrial oils, such as lubricants.
Anyone who thinks this should go to the wall: The Inuit have been eating sea animal fat for thousands of years. How did they get the fat and calories to survive the cold winter without it? Back then, Europeans refined whale oil by boiling offal, bones, and other ingredients together. Isn't that the same method used by the Daxia people to boil animal fat?
After heating the oil, Xiao Peng directly put the two fish heads and the fish fillets with fins and tail fins into the pan and began to fry them. After a short fry, the surface of the entire fish turned golden, which made people's appetite increase just by looking at it.
"This kind of fried fish is only delicious when fried with the bones and fins!" Xiao Peng said as he fried the fish. "The best parts of the fish are the area between the head and tail and the pectoral and pelvic fins. Well... when frying it this way, you don't need to add anything else. Just sprinkle some salt on it, marinate it for a while, and then fry it directly. Of course, the prerequisite is that you must use the freshest fish to eat it this way. If the fish is not fresh, it will taste terrible!"
Paula ignored the black smoke from the firewood and took two deep breaths of the fish fragrance: "It's just as you said, it feels super fragrant!"
Xiao Peng shook his head. "That's far from enough. If you really want it to be fragrant, you have to use peanut oil! Blended oil and olive oil won't work! Not to mention this 'sea lion oil' we use. The sea lion fat is thick enough to be refined into a lot of oil, but the taste is really not fragrant. It's not even as good as lard! Just make do with it!"
"Is this okay to eat?" Paula asked curiously, "What about the rest of the fish? How do you eat it?"
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