Salt, smoke, and slow mornings

The fish market opens at ten past four, which is early enough that the quayside still smells of last night's rain rather than diesel. I have been coming down here on Thursdays since March, mostly to watch how the Aiello brothers break down a whole turbot in under ninety seconds — four cuts, no wasted motion, the kind of economy you only get from doing something eleven thousand times.

This week I finally asked why they salt the collar before the fillet. The answer took forty minutes and involved a diagram drawn on the back of a landing ticket. I have reproduced it below, badly, along with the brine ratio that made me rethink every piece of fish I cooked last winter.