HI,
We went to the Black Fire Brigade for their Asian Carp burger the following week. We arrived on time, though they needed more time to set up.
Black Fire Brigade
8404 S Kedzie Ave
Chicago, IL 60652
When we returned, there was a woman working the crowds. She particularly enjoyed filming people biting into an Asian Carp burger for the very first time. We learned she was Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) Commissioner Josina Morita. There was quite an animated conversation about Asian carp issues. If Asian Carp could gain acceptance, Morita advised they could harvest one-million pounds a month from the Illinois River. The dream is to eat it out of existence.
Due to our intense interest, she gifted us with a five-pound pail of deboned Asian carp. This was divided into a single one-pound package and a number of half-pound packages.
From the get-go, I decided to use this fish in traditional dishes from various cultures. My first effort is a half recipe of
Asian fish balls.
My initial reaction to this recipe, it sure uses a lot of devices and dishes. Puree the fish with Shaoxing wine and ice water in a food processor. Transfer to a stand mixer for the addition of salt, sugar, egg whites and water, then beaten for 15 minutes. I had the advantage of a machine to do this work, can you imagine doing this by hand? I then added tapioca powder and some water. At this point, you test a small nugget of fish paste to see if it floats. Exactly the same method for making tamale batter.
When it came time to shaping, I abandoned making balls and used this as an opportunity to shape the fish paste into cannels. Once made, they need an hour in the refrigerator to chill and firm up. I used a large mixing bowl, then had to use a smaller mixing bowl to keep these balls. Next time, I will use a wide mouth salad bowl for this step. The dishwasher is filling with dishes devoted to this recipe and we have not yet cooked them!
The preferred temperature range for poaching these fish balls was 176 to 194 degrees. While it was suggested these would take three minutes to cook. At three minutes, I flipped to let them finish cooking another three minutes. Since we were shortly having these for lunch, I put the fish balls into water to wait.
I dumped the cooking water from the fish balls, because it smelled fishy. Sometimes I cheat, yes cheat, I made a broth from pho and shrimp bouillon cubes. I also had some baby bok choy that I nipped at the bottom to separate all the leaves and slivered green onions. These were placed in a bowl with the fish balls with the broth ladled over.
Not completely confident my family would like the fish balls, I put small plates out with dabs of tamarind based Thai sweet and sour sauce made by Pantai. It was suggested as a dipping sauce for the balls.
My family was delighted with the fish balls. My Dad liked it best with the sweet and sour sauce. My Mom liked it with the soup, though she did add some tortilla chips. I liked it enough to consider sometime making more fish balls, but this time seasoned more strongly then will be deep fried like a street snack.
Asian Carp experiment number one has concluded.
Regards,
Cathy2