Ingredients For Life Cooking & Eating – Giant Grouper Fish Head

Grouper Fish Head – 石斑鱼头 (shi ban yu tou)

Found these at the Renton 99 Range Market, an Asian grocery shop gear toward Chinese shopper.  It’s a giant fish head of the grouper fish.  The meat of the fish must have been fillet and sold separately, but fish heads are seldom available around here, especially in this size, so I got excited and grab one right away.  It’s heavy, almost 5 pounds, perfect for all fish head recipes such as fish head soup, fish head curry, and fish head hotpot.

Fish head like this is rare in markets around here, the most available fish head around here is the salmon fish head because we have an abandon of them in the Pacific Northwest.  But the salmon fish head is only suitable only for a limited dish because of their unique taste.  For example, they are not suitable to make fish soup or fish broth, because the salmon taste will make the soup so out of place and limiting the broth for further application. 

But for a white fish fish head such as this grouper fish head, the application is endless, you can use it in all sort of fish head recipes because it has a mild and neutral taste.

One requirement for most fish head recipes is size, and you want the fish head to be big, because only big fish head can give you enough meat, especially around the chick bone.

You want to clean the fish head well before any kind of cooking.  The store can do it for you, but I made the mistake of not letting them cleaning it because I was in a hurry.  It took me a while at home, and the process was quite messy, but I did it.  Although not this time, but sometimes I like to cut, dissect and clean food my self because every time I do so, I learn something new and it allows me to know my ingredients a little better. 

-Lumaca