Not All Flounder are Created Equal

Good-looking and inexpensive Pacific arrowtooth flounder fillets are showing up in more and more grocery freezer cases. Beware. Unlike other flounders and soles, this fish gets reduced to a mushy pulp when cooked "because a protease enzyme degrades mycosin and leads to excessive softening of the muscle tissue when cooked" (per the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation). If you've ever cooked this fish you know what I mean by "mushy pulp". Like me, you may have initially thought there was something wrong with the way you handled the fish during thawing and preparation. Let a word to the wise be sufficient. The fish is nutritious and inexpensive but its cooking properties are awful. Incidentally, whiting has the same enzyme and the same problem with softening during cooking, though not to the same extreme.