Fish

[rikita]

Oct 15, 2013 5:02:52 GMT kerouac2 said:

You mean like in the bathtub?

yeah i think that is what some people do. but i asked my brother, he said grass carps are different to regular carps, they don't taste muddy even if big.

[Don Cuevas]

Feb 6, 2014 18:37:12 GMT bixaorellana said:

I never thought of you as a cruel person, but now ...........

          

We often have marinated herring in sour cream sauce, as, for example, this morning. I take jars of Vita Marinated Herring, drain off the marinade, and redress it with more onion slices and some Mexican crema, and adjust with some reserved marinade. I'm not fond of rollmops as those I've had were too sour and salty.

[bixaorellana]

I buy the Vita when I can find it, both the marinated & the sour cream versions. Unfortunately, the only place I know that carries it (& not always) is a distant supermarket where I never have occasion to go. I like both rollmops & the jarred pickled herring.

You've given me an idea, though. I need to go get some of that smoked fish from the Isthmus, give it a little soak in water, then drain it & let it marinate in something pickly, then dress it with onion & crema. Yes!

[Deleted]

I'm sure that there are all sorts of fresh fish that will taste delicious after being pickled in vinegar, onions and spices. I just don't know how long things should be pickled and at what point they become excessively pickled.

I don't think I have ever heard of pickled salmon, for example, but it seems to me like it would be quite good.

[Deleted]

Oh, it's out there:Pickled Salmon

[rikita]

i made fish tostadas yesterday. they were in a cook book with mexican recipes mr. r. has.

[Deleted]

Yesterday, I baked a relatively big tilapia (1.4kg) imported from China. I used chopped ginger, lemon juice, onions, sliced tomatoes and crème fraîche besides various usual spices and herbes de Provence. The result was quite good and definitely 10 times better than panga, but I was really reminded of why just about everyone prefers fish fillets. Peeling off the skin, picking out the bones, detaching the fins and head and all of that stuff is really a big pain when your goal is just to eat dinner.

Do any of you still deal with whole fish?

[Deleted]

I want to make some brandade de morue, but I can no longer find salt cod in vacuum bags, which only requires about 10 hours of soaking and changing the water. Just about every place has the big pieces of dried cod available (probably due to the Portuguese being the largest non-French population in France), but I don't want to work on the damned stuff for 48 hours -- my kitchen isn't big enough to leave a big bowl of water on the counter for 2 days.

[lagatta]

That's a pity; I'm able to find the vacuum bags at a Portuguese shop here, for lazy North-Americanised Portuguese, I suppose, but I find the result just as good and a hell of a lot less trouble in a small kitchen. They also have a Portuguese dish similar to brandade, frozen, but I've never tried it.

[Deleted]

I can buy refrigerated or frozen brandade just about anywhere, but I prefer to make it myself when possible, for the usual reason -- I can double the amount of fish.

[lagatta]

Here is the recipe for the fish dish I prepared but didn't cook yesterday evening: cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014641-greek-baked-fish-with-tomatoes-and-onions Of course I changed various things. It is there in the fridge to pop in. Since I did it on a golden potato base, it is sort of an upside-down fish pie...

[lagatta]

www.fishisthedish.co.uk is a site promoting fish in the UK; it has many accessible recipes (Not Ottolenghi!) I thought it was an industry site, but it is an association enacted by Parliament, obviously with industry input - read "about" for more details.

[tod2]

During my short shop for lamb chops and some salad leaves I happened to peer into the freezer section for fish and saw some beautiful long grey/pink whole fish. Marked as Red Mullet I suddenly remembered Rick Stein lusting after these fish in his series From Venice to Instanbul which is currently running on our screens.
They are not gutted which was disappointing but a young father and his sons were also looking at them and told me they keep better with the guts intact and that the mullet have a very small stomach and are easy to gut.
Now to find Rick's recipe....

[Deleted]

I have passed by this place dozens of times, but never paid attention to it. It is next to all of the kosher butchers at Porte de la Villette.

imageshack.com/a/img923/9292/pnS340.jpg

But I finally wondered: What the hell is boutargue? I looked it up and saw that it has two different spellings in French -- boutargue or poutargue. In English it is called bottarga.

Anyway, it is a pouch of mullet roe. It is salted and dried and then covered with beeswax to preserve it. To eat it, you slice it thin, remove the wax and usually also the skin of the egg pouch. It can be grated onto pasta or served in slices on toast. So, who has eaten it here? I don't think I've ever had it, or at least it was never identified to me.

www.lignepapilles.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/poutargue-300x300.jpg

Looks to me like it could be pretty good.

[lagatta]

I've eaten it. It is good; of course it is salty.

[bixaorellana]

I had it in Sicily, where it's called buttarga -- similar to the French word. It's nice!

Just looked it up and was delighted to find that it is from the Arab word botarikh – salted fish eggs

allthingssicilianandmore.com/2014/12/01/pasta-con-bottarga-pasta-with-grated-bottarga/

[lagatta]

What an old thread!

I just bought this product on sale, but not the fillets, the whole fish: www.laboucanerie.ca/fr/produits/filet-maquereau

What should I do with it, except for obviously, eating it... ? Any ideas?

[kerouac2]

I generally chop up smoked mackerel into a green salad.

[lagatta]

Yes, I was also thinking of a salad with some potato, but also greens. La mâche, for one thing, or rocket.

[kerouac2]

Another possibility is to swirl fragments into mashed potatoes, preferably also with garlic.

[lagatta]

Yes, but I rarely eat mash in the summertime. For me that is more a cold-weather dish. I'll keep that in mind for colder weather.

[lagatta]

Finally the smoked mackerel salad with little ratte potatoes and a kind of mesclun that unfortunately included tough stems which I discarded (don't mean threw away, they were frozen with the stuff that goes in soup stock). And some of my red curtido. It is good and tasty though the mackerel was too soft. Next time I'll buy the fillets, not the whole fish. Not sure I can use the head and skin in stock anyway, it might give too strong a taste...

[lagatta]

I haven't found one, though I'm sure some fishcake (and by extension crabcake and other seafood cake) recipes must be lurking here.

I'm rather taken with this Sephardic one, especially as it calls for cheap white fish. I have some frozen pollock, from a brand with a good reputation, and was looking for things to do with it: toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/israeli-stylefish-cakes/

[lagatta]

By the way, pine nuts are expensive here; quite a few people use walnuts or other soft nuts when making pesto, and I don't think it matters a lot, though the pine nuts are pretty. Here pine nuts would more than double the cost of that otherwise budget recipe.

[kerouac2]

That's pretty much the same here -- pine nuts are outrageous.

[lagatta]

Yes, I make my pesto with walnuts. Slightly different taste, but pesto isn't supposed to be a luxury food, it is a way of using the annual basil explosion.

[lagatta]

I'm trying to work on a gently spiced fish pie - I mean the kind with potato on top, not a pie in a shell Think I'll try Moroccan spices like ras al hanout and cumin, cardamom etc. Not using fresh fish for this, just some frozen haddock on sale which I will mix with other things. Onions, obviously, perhaps some greens.

[lagatta]

Finally no onions as I made a mixture of fine rondelles of leek with a bunch of spinach. I sautéed the leek in a bit of olive oil (perhaps 1 tbsp?) and added a bit of water and lemon juice when they started to stick - I could have used white wine if I had any left over. I shredded the spinach and added it at the end, just to wilt it.

I had HUGE Yukon gold (yellow) potatoes so only used two, cut into large chunks and boiled in water until they were ready to mash. The mash included a couple of tbsp of olive oil, Belsoy soya cream, goat yoghurt... People not lactose intolerant can simply use the (cheaper) cow equivalents. When the mash had cooled down, I whipped in a small egg, beaten beforehand. That makes a firmer mash layer.

The fish was just frozen haddock fillets, on sale at a supermarket. I poached them in the potato water after removing the potatoes, turning the heat off; just letting them poach in the warm water. I flaked them by hand.

Spicing? I wanted a bit spicy, but not "hot". This included some yellowish ras al hanout (Moroccan spice mixture, not quite the same as curry powder), cardamom and cumin, as well as a bit of Aleppo pepper (Espelette pepper or another not-to-hot red pepper would work; bixa and Don Cuevas would know which Mexican ones to use).

My layers were as follows. Bit of olive oil rubbed in enamelled iron oval pan, half the leek/spinach mixture, fish, other half of leek/spinach, mash, sprinkled with Aleppo pepper (pretty little red flakes).

I've popped it in the oven, but won't eat some until tonight or tomorrow night; I'm also roasting a turkey leg (thigh+drumstick) as protein for the week (along with eggs and tempeh) as I work at home.

[kerouac2]

So, I bought a frozen tilapia the other day and let it defrost. Then I prepared a nice little bed for it in my oven dish.

imageshack.com/a/img924/9371/PJz5hY.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img923/4568/nsGowz.jpg

It was happy to rest there comfortably and then I adorned the top of it.

imageshack.com/a/img923/8686/PkxkPR.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img923/6482/F06qWn.jpg

I wrapped it in oven paper and tucked it in with foil.

imageshack.com/a/img922/9647/gx68eI.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img924/6449/AWznAx.jpg

It came out of the oven looking as fresh as ever. Tilapia not being a very firm fish, I had to deconstruct it to put a serving in my plate.

imageshack.com/a/img923/9554/U7UXKM.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img924/7992/DEnrFo.jpg

[bixaorellana]

I've never been attracted to the idea of fish pie, but your rendition sounds awfully good, LaGatta.

Your talapia must have been delicious, Kerouac. What are the yellowish strips -- lime peel?