Well, actually it is a fluke. David, at Wegmans seafood department, holds my 4 pound fresh-caught wild fluke. Nov 8, 2015. David is a master at filleting fish, and he does the job with surgical precision. Blogfinger.net ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
Today is the 11th anniversary of the Wegmans Ocean store, so they’re serving ice cream sundaes on Sunday in the employee break room.
And yesterday was the grand opening of their wine store’s new look—it is now twice its former size, although at the expense of some parking in the back. We will do a separate review of that amazing shop.
Yesterday they were having a tasting of an Italian Valpolicella which is a light red from northern Italy, a place where wine growing goes back to the Greeks. We got to compare that $63.00 wine with a $14.00 version from the same area. I guess I need some work on my wine appreciation, because I liked the cheaper version better. But my studies in oenology consist of watching “Sideways” about half a dozen times.
Wegmans seafood department is extraordinary; better than some we have visited where the boats come in at Florida’s southwest coast region. Everything is presented with immaculate care and freshness. They carry a nice variety of whole fresh-caught wild fish including, today, sea bass, red snapper and fluke, to name a few.
We are having company, so I chose the largest fluke there. Let’s call her Florence. She was a very beautiful 4 pounder, and it took Dave about 15 minutes to filet the fish down to 2.5 pounds. Flukes have very thick skin which some cooks find difficult to work around, so I asked Dave to skin it. After that we were down to 1.9 pounds of actual fish.
So if you select a whole fish, don’t forget that the filet will be about half the weight, although the mavens at Wegmans can make a good guess as to how much the filet will weigh. Of course you pay for the fish before Dave carves it up.
We will photograph Eileen’s finished product and post her recipe tomorrow.
CONAL FOWKES AND EDDY DAVIS Music from Woody Allen’s film “Celebrity” (celebrating a fish)