Cheeky!

Breakfast, Saturday December 31: seared grouper cheeks; sauteed shrimp; grits; salmon and tuna cream cheese; sour rye; apple.

A bit of a fourway and yes, grouper cheeks. A grouper is about 40% head by weight. There's a lot of meat up front. One of the tastiest morsels is the muscle the works the jaw. I think it is the equivalent of the masseter and the temporalis in humans, Anyhoo, it is below and a little behind the eye. All the bony fish have a pair, it's just that in the grouper they are especially large because of that 40% thing. It is one of the reasons that when I buy grouper I have the purveyor clean and fillet the whole fish then "reassemble" it to take home. Once home I will remove the cheeks then boil the head and other bones until it is just cooked through. I remove some pretty big hunks of meat in the top of the head and in the back and under where the cheeks were. I use this meat in a number of things: fish enchiladas; gumbo; tacos; scrambled eggs; fish cakes. . . Most times I return the remaining bones, cartilage, etc to the pot add onunion, carrot, celery then simmer for fish stock. The cheeks are great seared like above or breaded like chicken nuggets.