What a week of fish costs a Kochi family
Sardines on Monday, seer on Sunday: a realistic weekly fish and meat budget for four, at this month’s prices.
How to ask us to cut your fish
Steaks, curry pieces, fillets, butterfly or whole: the words to use so your fish arrives the way you cook it.
All cleaning and cutting at our counter is free, and we keep a note of how you like each fish. The trouble is that a curry piece in one kitchen is a steak in another. Here are the terms our cutters use, so you can order exactly what you want.
Whole, cleaned means scaled and gutted with the head and tail on. This is best for sardines, mackerel, karimeen and pomfret that you will fry or roast whole. Tell us if you want the head off or the fins trimmed. Steaks are cross-section slices through a large fish like seer, tuna or king fish, with the bone in the centre. Say the thickness: 1 cm for a quick fry, 1.5 to 2 cm for a curry that cooks longer. Curry pieces are smaller chunks of about 4 cm, with bone and skin, cut from the body of a medium fish such as mackerel or barracuda.
Fillets are boneless sides, skin on or off. They suit seer, snapper and pomfret for moilee, grills and children. Expect to lose about 40% of the weight to the head, bones and skin, so order a little more.
Butterfly cut means opened flat from the belly with the backbone removed, ready to stuff with masala; ask for this with large sardines or pomfret. For prawns, choose shell on, peeled with tail, or peeled and deveined. For crab, choose whole, halved or cut into quarters. Write your choice in the order note once, and Anil at the cutting table will remember it.
