In this episode I source another restaurant quality whole fish species from Whole Foods Market in Columbia, MD, my home town. I show you how to break down the fish, save often times discarded parts like the heads and collars, and make a delicious meal out of the fillets.

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Gear from the episode:
– CHEFS KNIFE: HTTPS://AMZN.TO/46ZWETB
– VACUUM SEALER: HTTPS://AMZN.TO/3SMRNWX
– CUTTING BOARD: HTTPS://AMZN.TO/48ZZEHN

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:39 Falling In Love
1:50 My Newsletter
2:47 Buying the Fish
3:14 Processing the Fish
6:06 Cooking
10:02 Outro

I love fish I love catching them and monst y I love processing them practice I’m getting better at it and most of all I love eating them so if I could eat just one fish species for the rest of my life do you know what that would be

Okay yeah did you catch that well on this episode I’m going to you through the process of buying processing and cooking what I think is the best tasting fish on the planet the stripe bass so my love affair with stripe bass began at the age of 12 when my dad for my

Birthday booked us a charter to go fishing for them in the Chesapeake Bay and wildly enough that landed us in a commercial with James Earl Jones and so I used the Yellow Pages to that’s my dad a CH and c and that’s that’s me at 12 years old very

Big it was an epic trip that I’ve never Forgotten strip bass is my favorite fish species of all time I could eat it all day every day for the rest of my life currently I’m living in Michigan but getting a hold of stripe bass in Michigan is a bit of a challenge and the Great

Lakes region is home to a wide variety of really delicious species either native species or introduced species and if you’re curious about those species of fish check out this episode for more on one of my favorite fish of the region the lake trout hey folks I just wanted

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Sign up okay let’s get back to the episode so when I went home to visit my parents for the holiday I was really eager to check out the Whole Foods in Columbia to see if they had any stripe bass and luckily I found what I was

Looking for so let’s pick things up at the Whole Foods and we’ll end with a delicious meal of pan seared stripe bass and creamy risotto this sale price for a whole stripe bass was $9 cheaper per pound than the filets that you could buy always always buy hold you got it

M yes inde okay over here I do a lot of videos when I make KS and stuff the quality of these stripe bass was the same high quality of the lake trout in Michigan just a really good Product Getting good at filing fish is all about reps so keep a sharp knife buy hole and let’s get this Work that’s good ah miss a lot of meat there getting the second filt off the skeleton has always been a struggle for me but I keep stacking up these reps and I think it’s paying Off beautiful fish it is absolutely gorgeous I tell you this this is the one fish if I had to eat one fish species for the rest of my life it’d be this one yeah straight bass you know the commercial yeah but other than that no I

Never I never caught one other than that trip looking good mm looking that down yeah I brought my vacuum sealer one two I know I’ve said it before but please save your fish collars there is so much flavor in this part of the fish that people miss out on

And I don’t want that to be you two whole fish six packages five meals not too bad the key to so many good meals is good stock and the key to good stock is making it at home one of the reasons why I buy shell

On shrimp is so that I can save those shells for making a seafood stock just simmer Your Parts add a little combo seaweed and you’ve got the best tasting stock you’ve ever had one of the keys to restaurant quality fish at home is making sure that the

Surface of the fish is as dry as Possible another key to restaurant quality fish at home is making sure your pan is the right temperature one way to tell if your stainless steel pan is at the right temperature is when water instead of evaporating does this in the pan a final key to restaurant quality fish at home

Is to make sure that once the fish goes into the pan skinside down you leave it alone allow the pan to let go of the skin rather than trying to scrape the skin off the surface of the pan you have to be patient but eventually the pan

Will let go and you’ll have a beautiful crust of skin on your fish making creamy risotto is all about having enough stock enough patience and enough endurance in your forearm add the stock slowly and allow the rice to absorb it and then once it does add a little bit more patience pays

Off here just like with cooking your fish yes this meal was as good as it looked and it instantly transported me back to all the fond childhood memories I had eating stripe bass delicious right I still have some fillets in the freezer so plenty of meals to come I’m not exactly sure what

To do with the heads besides like fish head soup so if you have any ideas for recipes for striped bass heads or just fish heads drop a comment below and let’s connect as always thanks for watching I’ll see you next time on n

5 Comments

  1. Fish heads are a great addition to the shrimp shells, complemented with mirepoix will add depth to your stock. I’ve enjoyed watching your videos and your thoughts on sustainability. I’ll definitely be checking out what’s next.

  2. Fish heads are a great addition to the shrimp shells, complemented with mirepoix will add depth to your stock. I’ve enjoyed watching your videos and your thoughts on sustainability. I’ll definitely be checking out what’s next.

  3. What cheese did you grate into the risotto?

    Just found your channel and looks like YouTube found me a total gem. Great pacing, camera presence, and overall quality. Thank you for the great content, I hope your viewership starts to match the quality of the content!

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