Edibility

[Alan Taylor]

wightman:

Hi Mate

 

 

The only thing I probaly not eat is Pout or conger

Both are excellent to eat, the Pout is a bit bony but a nice sweet meat, as for Conger, the tail section is a bit bony but if you cut it into steaks and lightly boil it, let it cool down. Remove the "jelly" (skin) and mix with mashed spuds, makes excellent fish pie or cakes.

Alan(nl)

[Vagabond]

Jim Roper:

 

Anybody who doesn't fancy Wrasse, has never caught one big enough. Scales! what about Bass and Bream?

Scales ? Most of the time we don't bother scaling things like wrasse, sea-bream etc. The best eating size for two people is a fish about two or three pounds. We just gut and wash the fish, and stuff it with spring onions, ginger root, and any other spices we fancy. Wrap in silver foil and bake it whole - either in an oven, or in the embers of a camp fire.

 

Unwrap, (CAREFULLY !) and the skin with attached scales can be eased off and put aside. Easy!

[*Ant*]

Just out of interest. Is there fish around our shoreline that shouldn't be eaten?

[chevin]

Kieran Hanrahan:

Dogfish is very tasty and deserves its nickname of "rock salmon". The problem is skinning it!

We don't have any fish called dog fish here, but we have plenty of small sharks that look like dog fish! Most of them are very good eating too, but I never bother to skin them. Our way of dealing with them is to take the side fillets and then cut them into managable sizes. They are laid on a tray - skin down - and put into the fridge overnight. Have a look at them next day, and you will see some discolouration of the flesh closest to the skin. Get a sharp knife and cut the clean flesh above that discolouration away, and chuck away what is attached to the skin. If you do that, you finish up with clean white flesh untainted by blood or amonia, and which is top quality eating!

 

Kieran Hanrahan:

Can't imagine eating a wrasse mind - they must be absolutely buggers to skin with scales like plate armour and those very nasty spines too!

Knowing how many of the Irish enjoy eating the Connor Fish I was surprised to see your comments about wrasse! However, if the scales are a problem, just get a blunt knife - normally called a bit of metal - and scrape it along the side of the fish from the tail forward. That will remove the scales easily and quickly. In Oz, every boy scout's knife has a "scaling blade" along with the thing for getting stones out of horse's hooves and the one for destroying the boomerang you have been trying to throw away for several weeks.

 

Talking of useful accessories, a recent innovation here is the fitting of a bottle opener as the handle to babies dummies. I guess it is a good idea really, I don't need the dummy, but I find the idea of having a bottle opener in my pocket to be a great comforter.

 

[ 18. July 2003, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: chevin ]

[chevin]

LeicesterCarl:

 

PS - What about shrimps/prawns from rockpools... aside from being good bait, are they any good for boiling up & eating?

When I was a kid, I lived at Hartlepool and I spent hours at rock pools catching shrimps by their antennae! I know that it sounds bizarre, but it is true! I took them home, they were boiled and we ate them! They tasted good, but unless you can find a far more efficient way of catching rock pool shrimps, I would say, "forget them" We even ate winkles that I gathered. Nothing wrong with them, in fact they are good, but the nourishment derived from a winkle is probably less than the energy expended in picking it up and extracting it from it's shell!

 

[ 18. July 2003, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: chevin ]

[chevin]

Jim Roper:

Nobody has mentioned Squid (Quiddle to Portlanders), the antidote to every known form of contraceptive, by all accounts. Seaborn Viagra!!

Dunno about that side of it but properly cooked squid is probably one of the best of the sea foods. If it is over cooked it is so tough it is awful, but cooked correctly it is unbelievably delicious. Cuttle fash are just as good, though a lot of people tend to ignore them.

 

A tip here for anyone catching squid. As they come aboard, squid will often spray ink and generally they manage to hit someone. If you get squid ink on clothing you will never get it out unless you take off the affected item and get it underwater immediately. Squid ink has an affinity for water, it's purpose is to spread quickly in it to give the squid the cover it requires. Get a tee-shirt or whatever in to the ocean immediately and the ink will leave it just as quickly. I have an ambition - so far unfulfilled - of taking Dolly Parton out on my boat and getting a squid to spray her tee-shirt.

 

Hmm, perhaps your original comment does have some substance!

[Jim Roper]

chevin:

In Oz, every boy scout's knife has a "scaling blade" along with the thing for getting stones out of horse's hooves and the one for destroying the boomerang you have been trying to throw away for several weeks.

Chevin, we're not allowed to carry a blade over three and a half inches in th UK any more.

[chevin]

Jim Roper:

 

Chevin, we're not allowed to carry a blade over three and a half inches in th UK any more. [/QB]

 

I didn't know that, can't you even carry a filleting knife in your tackle box? Still, a scaling blade doesn't need to be sharp. The tool for the job here is a blunt saw tooth thing with a pitch of about 6mm and you just lay it at a bit of an angle and then move it against the lay of the scales. That way it gets under them and lifts them off as clean as a whistle

[Jim Roper]

chevin:

I didn't know that, can't you even carry a filleting knife in your tackle box?

Only if you are fishing or in transit to/from same.

[chesters1]

i still carry a 9" filleter in my bag (it was longer but i broke the tip ) if its used in conjunction with a pastime i think its ok ,a bit different though if you swagger down the street with it picking your fingernails , i cant remember the last time a pc searched my bag ,heck i cant remember the last time i saw a pc