This is a mental note, a reminder to my brain, so to speak.

So here goes…

BRAIN! I do not care for fish served that way. Don’t ever let me do this again! If I ever feel the need to give it another try and start to argue with you when you try to be nice and dissuade me, here is a list of arguments that you can use to bring me back to reason:

  • First, you really don’t appreciate having the fish’s head, tails, bones and skin on your plate

 Well, once I remove all of that, I’m fine…

  • You DESPISE fish bones. Whole fish are LOADED with bones. Heck, they are NOTING BUT fish bones.

But, but, the flesh is so tender and it tastes so good when cooked that way

  • You’ve always hated leaving scraps on the side of your plate, be it only a bay leaf. And you want to deal with a COMPLETE CARCASS? Come on! Do you REALLY want to do that again?

Well… I could always use a separate plate for the scraps…

  • Whole fish still have their skin on. Gooey, STICKY SKIN. You don’t like fish skin. It makes all the bones and scales stick to your fingers. It drives you MAD.

But look how pretty that little red snapper is…

  • Fish, when cooked whole, look plain SCARY. You don’t actually enjoy eating scary things, do you?

Right, no, I don’t, but…

  • STOP ARGUING – GET A FILLET!

I mean seriously… look at this poor little fella. He was so cute before I cooked him… now he just plain scares me. He did, however, taste incredibly good!

So that’s it! End of the road for me as far as pan frying whole fish goes. From now on, I’ll stick to fillets. (I will however make an exception for the big guys that are too big to fit in a pan and need to be baked in the oven. At least they don’t make it to my plate with their head still attached!)