■ Palani was the “fish of the month” at our house in December. My resident fisherman introduced this fish to me when he returned from a day out in waters so rough he didn’t want to go all the way to the buoy. Instead, he and our daughter, Rahna, her husband, Craig, and brother-in-law Kent bottomfished, caught ulua and palani, and had a ball.
Rahna and Craig wanted to take fish home to New York, (which is why they were game to spend the day on the choppy water), so they packaged up the ulua, and stuck it in the freezer. They weren’t convinced they wanted the palani because they’d never tried it before and because in its raw, filleted state the meat appeared to be very tough, but our…