Sustainable fish dishes

NervousNude

I'd love to eat more fish, but to be honest the whole subject scares me a bit. I find fishmongers daunting and intimidating, and never know what I want. I'd like to have a couple of simple fish dishes that I can make using sustainable fish that don't cost the earth.

Any suggestions? I want to get away from the far-from-fresh, artificially coloured, sterile pre packed stuff that I've been buying from Tesco.

I'm in south Dublin city and don't mind travelling out to Dun Laoghaire of a Saturday, though ideally it'd be nice to be able to buy the fish in town.

olaola

The BIM website is fairly good. You'll get info on sellers, sustainable breeds and recipes.

antoniosicily

what you get from your fishmonger should be sustainable because there are regulation to fish particular species only in particular times of the year and all the fished fish should be of a certain size. Additionally fish-colture (I don't know if it's the right word) it's widely used.

bullpost

If you like spicy food, indian fish curries are delicious and easy to make. You can use fish thats easy to get your hands on , such as haddock and hake.

Olive oil, some spices, fish and lemon juice and you're made up.

If you're interested I can dig up a couple I use all the time and post them up.

NervousNude

antoniosicily wrote: »

what you get from your fishmonger should be sustainable because there are regulation to fish particular species only in particular times of the year and all the fished fish should be of a certain size. Additionally fish-colture (I don't know if it's the right word) it's widely used.

If this is true and it's not possible to buy unsustainably caught fish, then why is this even an issue?

Thanks for the tips so far!

antoniosicily

NervousNude wrote: »

If this is true and it's not possible to buy unsustainably caught fish, then why is this even an issue?

Thanks for the tips so far!

The typical example of unsustainable fish is tuna, which Japan eat a lot; it is endagered at the moment but we are seeing that the population of tuna in the sea are a lot less, same for other fishes; it is not sustainable because at the moment it's not possible to cultivate it but there is a centre in Japan where they managed to reproduce tuna in captivity.

All the salmon you get, unless it is indicated as 'wild', it is cultivated, same for seabream, seabass etc, your fishmonger should put everything in the label, even when the fish is cultivated; cultivated fish is not the same as wild fish (different taste) but it is sustainable.

CJhaughey

Generally most fish caught by Irish trawlers are sustainable, unsustainable fisheries would be some tuna species, patagonian toothfish etc.
If you take fresh locally caught fish, Haddock, Whiting, Cod and Prawns they will have been caught by local Irish vessels in Irish waters. That to me is sustainable and is an example of local food buying.
The criteria for MSC approval costs a fortune, too much for most small trawler operators and is not suitable for a mixed fishery(fish of different species caught together) the main driver for sustainable certification is for large vessels targeting one species (Mackerel, Scad, Herring) because large supermarket chains are demanding the certs.
It is a bit like asking a small farmer to certify himself to ISO9000 in order to be able to sell his meat to a large supermarket chain, the costs involved in certifying his farm would outweigh the benefits that ISO accreditation would bring.
Ask the fishmonger where the fish comes from, in Howth it is likely to be from local vessels which have caught it in the Irish sea.

olaola

Locally caught cod is not sutainable, you'd need to go for Iceland/Norway. As a rule, farmed fish is sustainable.

schmeelad

NervousNude wrote: »

I'd love to eat more fish, but to be honest the whole subject scares me a bit. I find fishmongers daunting and intimidating, and never know what I want. I'd like to have a couple of simple fish dishes that I can make using sustainable fish that don't cost the earth.

Any suggestions? I want to get away from the far-from-fresh, artificially coloured, sterile pre packed stuff that I've been buying from Tesco.

I'm in south Dublin city and don't mind travelling out to Dun Laoghaire of a Saturday, though ideally it'd be nice to be able to buy the fish in town.

fish shouldnt cost a lot and is really easy to cook. I got two beautifully fresh, tasty amazing Black Sole (AKA Dover Sole) in town on saturday morning for 10euro. It's a whole fish, but you can ask the fishmonger to remove the heads for you. cooking any fish is so simple.

wash the fish. pat dry with towel. season both sides. heat oil in pan. add fish, presentation side down always, cook for couple of minutes (depending on size, until you start to see a light golden colour), turn fish, add nob of butter,lemon juice. baste then remove from heat after about a minute. flesh should flake easily when cooked. serve.

a nice to to do is blanch some green beans before hand, add them and cherry tomatoes to the pan with fish after about 2 mintues to heat up. serve with some beautiful flowery irish spuds (skins on of course) with parsley, rock salt and butter.

the Sole mentioned above would take about 5-6mins each side because it is a whole fish. But get some hake which is in season now and will cost about 5ish a portion. remember when cooking fish with skin, always put skin side (presentation side ie the side that looks at you on plate) down into a hot pan (but not smoking) and dont move it. this gives it the crispy skin, then turn it and add the butter etc for the last min

remember fresh fish should only be cooked simply, dont fudge with it, you want to taste the fish. the less you do to it, the more you will taste

CJhaughey

olaola wrote: »

Locally caught cod is not sutainable, you'd need to go for Iceland/Norway. As a rule, farmed fish is sustainable.

How do you know it is not sustainable?
Farmed fish still eat fish pellets that come from fish that are caught and processed into pellets and shipped to where the fish farms are, sometimes from the other side of the world.
As I explained the MSC certification only really applies to single species fisheries where there is enough boats,political power and money to get certification.
Are you saying that the 40ft boat that Jack Murphy takes to sea and catches 10 cod for a 2 day trip and lands them to a local shop is not sustainable?
I would say you need to take a dose of reality.
Small scale artisanal fisheries are as close as you get to sustainable.
It would make not a jot of sense for a small boat to fish in an unsustainable manner when they are restricted by virtue of their size to local areas where they have to fish all year round.

Snowie

NervousNude wrote: »

I'd love to eat more fish, but to be honest the whole subject scares me a bit. I find fishmongers daunting and intimidating, and never know what I want. I'd like to have a couple of simple fish dishes that I can make using sustainable fish that don't cost the earth.

Any suggestions? I want to get away from the far-from-fresh, artificially coloured, sterile pre packed stuff that I've been buying from Tesco.

I'm in south Dublin city and don't mind travelling out to Dun Laoghaire of a Saturday, though ideally it'd be nice to be able to buy the fish in town.

hey

fish is easy to cook all you gotta decide is what kind of fish you want, after that what method and what your going to eat with it......

as for good fish its all good as long as you know what to do with it...

what have you done with your fish in the past and what fish have you used?

NervousNude

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

hey

fish is easy to cook all you gotta decide is what kind of fish you want, after that what method and what your going to eat with it......

as for good fish its all good as long as you know what to do with it...

what have you done with your fish in the past and what fish have you used?

Hi Snow-Monkey,

I usually eat seafood mix (big frozen bags from aldi), or pre packed stuff from tesco. Pre-packed fish tends to be salmon, haddock, whiting (just the once - this stuff is a mushy nightmare!), or the fish mix packets. I love fish pie so make this quite a bit by poaching some sort of fish in milk and then throwing in some seafood mix. Occasionally I'll make a mild fish curry. Once or twice I've made seafood tagliatelle. That's pretty much it.

I'd like to try something a little less 'safe', where I can really make the most of a nice piece of fish. I was quite concerned about what I could buy that isn't horribly overfished, but it seems that if I'm careful about where I buy from that this isn't really much of an issue.

The black sole/hake recipe below sounds good, I'm hoping to try it out this weekend.