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labeling. Buying at a reliable source and using your eyes and experience do help. Established
seafood markets are the most likely source for good products. In the U.S., supermarket seafood
departments vary from poor to excellent. Find a reliable source for seafood and support it.
Should you be lucky enough to have a good Asian food market near you, check out their
seafood. Asian cooks not only recognize absolutely fresh fish, they demand it. Often you will
find a variety of fresh fish and shellfish swimming in large aquariums, and you can choose the
one you want to take home. The clerk then cleans, dresses and cuts up your pick in a matter of
three minutes. The prices are often reasonable, but the drawback is that you may not know what
you are buying. The names may be different from the ones you are familiar with, and the staff is
not usually able to help to assign the correct English name.
Fish terminology
Steak is a 1 to 1½-inch-thick (2½ to 4-cm) slice cut across the body, nearly always of a
fin fish. It includes the backbone that gives support to the steak in cooking. Sometimes they use
the name centercut steaks that come from the center portion, these are the largest steaks. You get
progressively smaller steaks towards the tail where the fish body narrows. Nape cut is a steak
that comes from the body closest to the head. Steak is the most versatile cut of fish. You can
prepare a steak by any cooking technique you wish.
Fillet is a boneless piece they cut lengthwise along the backbone. Each fish has two
fillets one on each side. When the two fillets cut from the two sides remain attached on the back,
you have a butterfly fillet, if on the belly, it is a kited fillet. These two kinds of fillets are twice as
big, a nice feature when they are from small fish, and more versatile than single fillets—they are
easy to stuff. It takes some experience to cut these double fillets, so let the fish market do the job
for you. Cooking a fillet takes more care than cooking a fish steak. Fillet has no supporting bone
structure. This rules out several cooking techniques. Having no bones makes it much easier for
the diner, though.
Loin cut is the whole uncut center portion of the fish body. This is a large, self-
supporting piece, like a meat roast (sometimes they label it fish roast). You can also debone a
loin cut.
Markets sell whole fish two ways:
Dressed—they scale the fish and remove the innards, but they leave on the head and tail.
You can poach, bake or grill whole dressed fish. If the fish is small, you can even sauté or deep-
fry it as is.
Pan-dressed—same as dressed, but they remove the head and tail. This is the way you
usually see small fish in the display case, ready to deep-fry or sauté.
How much seafood should you buy?
Dietitians use 3 or 3½-ounce (85 or 100 g) servings (usually weighed cooked; raw weight
would be about 3½ to 4 ounces or 100 to 110 g) of boneless fish per person as a guide. That is a
small serving, suitable for hospital patients and people on diets. The standard restaurant portion
guide is 5 to 6 ounces (140 to 170 g) (raw weight) for a lunch, 6 to 8 ounces (170 to 225 g) for a
dinner portion. Your best bet is somewhere in-between 4 and 8 ounces (110 to 225 g) ,
depending on your diners' appetite and how heavy the overall meal is. A good average serving is
5
to 6 ounces (140 to 170 g) per person for boneless fish. The table below is more specific. Take
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