Kavey Eats: fish

Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts

Saturday, 26 June 2010

See Food & Eat: Abel & Cole Fish + The Billingsgate Market Cookbook

As regular readers know, I've reviewed a number of products from Abel & Cole over the last year, from fruit and vegetables to dried fruits and nuts to chicken, beef and lamb. Most recently, I was invited to review some of their fresh fish produce, which was perfect timing after our recent day at the Billingsgate Seafood Training School.

Although most of us still associate them with organic fruit and veg, Abel and Cole also offer a great range of fish, from haddock, pollock and whiting to sardines and mackerel to salmon and trout to more specialist fish such as john dory, lemon sole, sea bass and guilt head bream. And then there are the various smoked fish and fish cakes not to mention the crab, scallops and squid.

Here's what I was sent and how I found it:

Cornish Pan-Ready Mackerel (390 grams, £3.89, £9.97 per kg)
Flaky Roast Smoked Salmon (160 grams, £5.75)
Monkfish Fillets (375 grams, £13.92, £37.11 per kg)
Sea Bass Fillets (£12.15)
Seafood and Eat it White Cornish Crab (100 grams, £4.99)

Cornish Pan-Ready Mackerel

Sold in pack sizes of approximately 350 grams (ours was just over) and priced at £9.97 per kilo mackerel really are a great value fish for every day eating.

For us, the pack of three smallish fish was awkward – we cook for two and 3 fish on the bone aren't well-suited dividing between two people! I understand Abel & Cole have reviewed all their pack sizes recently, but it's the pack size alone that would stop me ordering this again.

We used a simple marinade recipe (of dark soy sauce, sesame oil, honey and fresh ginger) from the The Billingsgate Market Cookbook before barbequeing the fish on our brand new (rather spiffy) new barbeque. Absolutely delicious, great quality, very fresh. We served it with a simple cucumber salad, lightly pickled in salt, sugar and a little white wine vinegar.

Flaky Roast Smoked Salmon (160 grams)

The roast smoked salmon was very nice – we enjoyed it with a fresh tomato salad. But whilst it was pretty good, it wasn't as good as the incredible kiln roast salmon by J Bennett that we found at the Billingsgate Fish Market (and which MarkyMarket has sinced sourced more of for us).

Monkfish Fillets

There were three monkfish fillets in the pack, of variable size. This wasn't such an issue as next time, I'll likely cut them down further into large cubes of fish and either cook on skewers on a BBQ or in a curry or bouillabaisse.

This time, we marinated them in a ready-made spice mix I was given ages ago, and shallow fried, as per the spice packet's instructions. The spice-mix wasn't great and certainly not suited to being used as per the instructions, would have been far better in a slower-cooked curry dish.

However the fish was perfect and, if I couldn't get to a local fishmonger (I like to look and choose, not to mention have more control over volume) I'd certainly be happy to buy this from Abel & Cole.

Sea Bass Fillets

We used another recipe from the The Billingsgate Market Cookbook for the sea bass fillets (of which there were five in the pack, of variable size). We baked the fish with garlic, lemon juice and zest, rosemary and extra virgin olive oil).

It was fresh and delicious – the simple recipe really enhanced the natural flavours of the fish.

Seafood and Eat it White Cornish Crab

I was also sent two 100 gram pots of cornish crab meat (white only). You can also buy pots of just brown meat or potted crab with butter, white and brown meat mixed, both of which are less expensive than the white meat, as you'd expect.

I had plans to use the crab in a pasta dish but came home from a long-running PR event having eaten only a handful of canapés since lunch time. It was nearly 11 pm – too late for me to consider cooking. So I ate a pot of the crab meat straight from the fridge.

Really, really fabulous with not a single scrap of shell and some lovely large chunks of meat as well as the usual tiny white flakes. Sweet, fresh, delicious. But I do think £4.99 is a lot for just 100 grams.

Overall, I was certainly impressed by quality, freshness and taste. But I found some of the pack sizes awkward to use, cooking for two. I do realise fish come in different sizes, so it must be hard to standardise pack sizes. Shopping in person, I can see the size of whole fish or fillets available that day and choose to buy one or more for each diner. I know this isn't possible when ordering online, but it does mean I'm much less likely to buy my fish this way, even though I know it's sustainable, which is important to me.

The The Billingsgate Market Cookbook is currently available from Amazon for £11.89, usual retail price £20.

Saturday, 19 June 2010

Guest Post: Cookinacurry’s Green Coconut Prawn Curry

I'm very pleased to introduce the first ever guest post on Kavey Eats – a delicious curry from Cookinacurry's Maunika Gowardhan. Enjoy!

And please do visit Maunika's blog today to read my guest post where I share a recipe for paneer malai.

My trip to a fish monger today fills me with excitement, joy, anticipation and this unusual burst of energy which stems back with memories from my childhood that always come flooding back in an instant. My family lived in the coastal region of Maharashtra where seafood was always in abundance, with even a fishmonger visiting our doorstep frequently. Maharashtrians do eat Chicken and mutton but based on the way the region is laid out, a fully fledged meat based diet is consumed within the inner regions where supply of seafood can be scarce.

Welcome to my guest post on Kavey’s blog. I’m Maunika Gowardhan, a private chef and columnist for Food Quarter Magazine in the North East of England. My food is a reflection of everything I have absorbed, learnt and seen my mother cook for my family growing up as a young girl. But beyond that, it also encompasses regional fare from a sub continent that is vibrant, diverse in culture with over 25 different states and home to millions of people making hearty homely food.

I champion Indian food all the way not just to show case that it’s easy but more importantly versatile. That’s the kind of food I cook for my family, clients and also whilst doing food demos. To share my experience join me on my blog www.cookinacurry.co.uk Make sure to leave a comment but more importantly cook the dishes and make them part of your repertoire.

As a young girl accompanying my mother to the meat and fish market was something I would look forward to, keen to see what fresh produce was be up for grabs. This really might not be something everyone enjoys but for me it was unique and special. The market had the distinct ‘fishy’ smell to it as you walked up to the entrance. The rustic colonial style doors leading the way to massive halls (almost the size of billingsgate market!) with old fashioned bronzed fans dotted about which just about made the place cool. My mother made sure to carry our own retro shopping baskets to the stalls as most of the fish bought was usually just wrapped in newspaper.

The first port of call was ALWAYS to surf the market and see who had freshest fish. Also to check pricing on every stall was key. With rows of women sat in a line with variety of fish and shell fish to sell, all vying to make that next sale shouting out the price of the fish trying to get the customers attention. As with most indian fish markets, the men usually went out to shore and caught the fish in the early hours of the morning whilst the women collected the days quota and bought it across to the markets to sell.

Like every regular punter, my mother knew exactly who had the best quality. The stock included Pomfret (also known in the market as Paaplet derived from the Portuguese dialect), Mackerel, and Bombay duck which taste amazing when batter fried. A variety of king prawns; gleaming clams and my favourite live blue swimmer crabs.

Our shopping would be for pomfret which to be honest back in the 80’s and 90’s was a luxury to eat. A flat fish which my mother usually sliced and pan fried in spices. Prawns were always something we stocked up on too. Some of it was cooked on the day whilst the rest was frozen.

Even today going to the fishmongers for me is special, though the shops are much more organised and cleaner now. Nevertheless I revel in joy seeing the abundance of the sea out there with a choice of the best seafood. Shopping for this post you could say was no different. A sunny Sunday morning I was up early, making my way to South Shields in the North East to visit Latimers. A must visit if your ever in the North East. There is a lovely cafe in one half of the shop so once I’m done with my shop I sit in the cafe overlooking the sea sampling fresh oysters that they serve up. On that particular day, I was hoping to find something for a curry based dish but was delighted as ever when I got there to discover some of the freshest prawns. I picked out 5 pieces. Based on the size of the prawns the quantity was more than enough to form the main part of my curry. A green coconut prawns curry which is something commonly eaten in the west coast of India spanning from Maharashtra, Goa and down to southern India.

Cooking something coastal with flavours of coriander, coconut milk, curry leaves to form a paste coating the succulent prawns was perfect. The base of the dish was a paste I ground down and fried in oil. I include the prawn heads to the curry while cooking as it adds to the flavour. But that’s a personal preference so feel free to discard them. The dish had a light sauce; served with some steamed rice. Not stodgy or heavy but a tangy, creamy and distinct flavour of coriander running through. It’s my favourite ways of cooking seafood. You can even swap the prawns for any variety of fish. Garnished with coriander and lemon juice it’s a treat anytime of the year.

Cookinacurry’s Green Coconut Prawn Curry

Ingredients
5-7 jumbo raw prawns (if you’re using smaller prawns increase the quantity)
½ tsp turmeric powder
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil
8-10 curry leaves
350mls coconut water
100mls water
Salt to taste
1 tbsp chopped coriander for garnish

For the green paste;
100gms coriander leaves
6 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
Juice of one lime

Method

1. Peel and devein the prawns leaving the tails on. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and turmeric powder on the prawns. Mix well and set aside whilst you make the paste.

2. Mix all the ingredients for the paste in a mini processor and whiz to a fine paste. Add a couple of tablespoons of water if required to get a paste consistency.

3. Spread a couple of teaspoons of the paste over the prawns and set aside.

4. Heat oil in a sauce pan add the curry leaves and sauté until they crackle

5. Add the remaining paste and sauté on medium heat for 2-3minutes. Add the prawns and sauté for 1 minute

6. Pour in the coconut milk and simmer for 5minutes and add the water

7. Simmer for a further 4-5 minutes until the prawns are just cooked

8. Season to taste and garnish with chopped coriander. Serve immediately with chapattis or steamed rice

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Cooking A Crab!

I can't believe I've never actually cooked a crab before. It's one of my favourite sea foods, such a wondrous thing. I order it often in restaurants. And the one occasion every decade that my dad cooks, he cooks a hot and spicy Bengali crab curry. I even buy dressed crab now and again when I just want it plain and unadorned.

So when my friend (and recent ox cheek supplier) MarkyMarket told me about the fresh live crabs he could get his hands on, I couldn't resist.

Mark duly turned up one fine Friday morning with an enormous live crab which had been swimming free in the sea only the afternoon before. He also kindly gave me instructions on how to store it in the fridge until the next day, how to kill it and how to cook it.

That bit was all easy enough (thankfully, spending the night in my fridge, wrapped in a teatowel, had put my crab into a virtual coma) but oh my goodness, it took me almost 2 hours (and a heck of an aching back) to get all the meat out!

That (large, deep) pasta bowl, below, shows the half way point once I'd emptied legs/ claws but before I even begun on the main body. There was so much meat in that baby, I couldn't believe it! I only wish I'd weighed it, all the better to delight in my bounty!

I had it the first night with fresh white bread and some (rather too strong) home-made aioli (thanks Rachel, for aioli advice, I'll get it right next time). And there was still a huge mountain of it left for the night after. Happy days.

Live crab

Cooked crab

Picking out the meat

Nothing beats the taste of fresh, local produce from land and sea! If you've been hesitating about tackling a crab yourself, hesitate no longer!

Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Catch of the Day at Billingsgate Fish Market

"I have to get up at WHAT time?!?!"

"4.30 am"

"What?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy?"

"Because the course starts at 6.30 with registration at 6.15"

And so, we witness a time of day we've not seen for quite a while, especially since we've been on our extended holiday sabbatical.

But we have good reason: We're attending Billingsgate Seafood Training School's "Catch of the day 1" course covering fish preparation and cookery.

Synopsis of the day (photos below)

We arrive for 6.15, easily find parking outside and gather in one of the school's cookery rooms, which look down onto the market floor.

Some attendees are late (grrr!) so the introduction (to how the market works) and market tour start a bit late. We're split into small groups, ours is taken round by Adam Whittle, deputy director of the school.

The tour lasts about an hour and 15 minutes and Adam shows us lots of different fish, what to look out for when selecting fish (how to tell if they're fresh) and lots of interesting information. We also have the chance to buy some fish but, as we'll be taking home quite a bit from the course, I just pick up a couple of small bags of frozen whitebait for the freezer.

After the tour, at about 8 am, our group of about 14 enter our cookery classroom where we're served a freshly cooked breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg on a toasted muffin.

Shortly afterwards, our tutor Eithne Neame introduces herself, and our lessons begin. We go next door to the cool room where Eithne shows us the fish we'll be working with during the day.

Once we've each taken our stations, donned aprons, had a brief chat about knife safety and washed our hands we begin, at around 8.30 am.

The format for each fish/ preparation method is the same - first we gather around Eithne's station where she slowly, methodically and clearly demonstrates and talks us through the process, sometimes more than once for the more complex lessons. Then we each collect our own fresh fish and have a go ourselves.

I was really nervous about whether or not I'd be able to master the techniques - we learn to scale, gut, bone, fillet and more for a variety of different fish including coley, gurnard, mackerel, sea bream, plaice plus mussels and king prawns as well - but I find they come very easily and am absolutely thrilled with how quickly and easily I finish each lesson. Pete struggles a little, but does manage too.

When we're done, the class assistants bring out our bags, each one has our name on it, and we wrap our prepared fish and pop it into our bag, before it's taken back into the cool storage. We'll be taking most of our fish home. The assistants have prepped the ingredients for us to marinade the mackerel and stuff the half-filleted plaice so once we've prepared the fish, we apply the marinade/ stuffing and wrap the fish in foil before adding to our bags.

We've been given a book with the recipes, so we'll be able to recreate them easily at home.

Between the lessons, we pause to put on a pan of fish stock between each two students. Into it go the skins of our coley fillets, the heads and shells of the prawns and the head and skin of the gurnard as well as onion, garlic, carrots etc. prepped again by the assistants. In order that we are able to focus our time on the fish preparation lessons, they also strain the stock when it's ready and prepare the ingredients we then combine with the stock in order to make our bouillabaisse

Oh and we do have a welcome coffee and biscuit break late morning.

Eventually we're done.

Most of our prepared fish is going home with us but the prawns, the mussels and a little of the coley fillet are destined for the bouillabaisse and we go ahead and pop them into the soup base to cook. In the meantime, the fish Eithne used to demonstrate each lesson have been cooked by the assistants and are served, buffet style, for us to enjoy with our bouillabaisse for lunch. We're all starving by this point, about 1.30 pm.

Our tutor Eithne says goodbye and quickly rushes off as we sit and eat lunch at our leisure while the assistants do the washing up.

We're given coolbag carrier bags in which to take our fish home though as our tutor rushed away, we're not given the opportunity to buy knives like those we used during class (with just the right amount of flexibilty in the blades to make the techniques easy) or the The Billingsgate Market Cookbook, which we examined during the morning, and which contains handy reference pages reminding us on the techniques we used to gut and fillet the various types of fish.

So what did we think?

We both thought the course was excellent. The lessons on fish preparation were far more comprehensive and easy-to-follow than we expected and we came away feeling more confident about them than we'd imagined possible after just one day's training. I really liked the way our tutor demonstrated and explained the various skills in a way that made them seem so straightforward.

The cooking element of the course is fairly minimal, as the assistants do practically all of the ingredients preparation and our contribution is slathering the pre-mixed marinades onto our fish, placing the pre-measured stuffing ingredients into our fish and adding a few ingredients to our stock and soup and stirring now and again. This balance does makes sense, as you really do need the time given to the fish preparation side. But I'd like just a little more time spent on the cooking, especially things like advice on how to tell when fish is cooked sufficiently, without being overcooked, how to best cook fish fillets in a pan and so on. Some of this could have been discussed in a question and answer session at the end, but we didn't have any time for this before the tutor left.

A smaller class size would be strongly preferable. With 14 in the room, the tutor seemed not to notice that there were a couple of students (Pete being one of them) who were always the last to finish the practical sessions at the end of each lesson and that they really struggled to do so before she was calling us to the demonstration for the next one. Although she did walk around during the practicals, she very rarely made it to our station and never to Pete, who was stationed in a corner. Better would have been to make a mental note of who were usually the last to finish, and go and visit their stations earlier during the practicals, to check whether they needed extra guidance. For me, this is key to ensure that all class members get the best from the course and keep up with the pace required to cover all the material in the allotted time.

The course isn't cheap but, from what I understand, those of us who attend the paid classes such as this one, provide the school with the means to provide training for young people, free of charge. The school also teaches and provides certification to those working in the industry, such as fishmongers and environmental health officers.

Practical Info

Catch of the day 1 costs £185 per person. You can find out more, and book courses, on the school's website.

Thanks to my ma and pa for this very marvellous Christmas present!

The The Billingsgate Market Cookbook is currently available from Amazon for just £11.23.

Photos from the day