Each time the nets are drawn in, unwanted bycatch is caught.  The bycatch is fish which either won’t sell, or fish for which the trawler has used its full quota.  The unwanted fish, including threatened species, is thrown back dead known as “discarding”.  At fish Fishfight.net, you can read more about Hugh’s campaign to reform EU fishing laws and change the UK’s fish eating habits.  You can also support a petitioning letter which will be sent to the EU, MEPs and the fishing policy reform group.  Three TV episodes fronted by Hugh can be seen on 4OD, as can a series shorts by Jamie Oliver demonstrating recipes different types of fish.

Once signed up, help drive demand for other fish species by eating a fish that’s not Cod, Tuna or Salmon.  These three species apparently make up 50% of the total fish eaten in the UK.  A handy Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) guide shows which fish to try to buy and which to try to avoid in order to ease pressure on fish stocks.
Jamie Oliver’s Fish Suppers include Coley Korma.  This is a quick and easy fish dish, with the added bonus of being really cheap too.  Check out the full recipe here.  You’ll be surprised at how simple and tasty the dish is.  Buy cheap filleted Coley and this curry could become a regular feature on your menu.  The photo above (from C4Website) shows the dish!

You can’t go too wrong with barbequed or grilled Mackerel or Sardines.  If you’re put off by the pin bones, serve with crusty bread and you won’t notice them at all.  Hugh tries to get fried Mackerel baps on the chippy menu here.  Try also herring – like this previous post did, again, cheap, quick and tasty.

In a previous whatiatetoday post about Mussels explained how to gather and prepare wild Mussels.  If you buy sustainably farmed Mussels, either fresh or frozen, they’ll already be clean ready to go; you can knock up the same tasty recipe in minutes.

At the chip shop, consider Coley or Hake in batter.  It’s worth giving them a try and they’re often cheaper than Haddock or Cod.

Far from wanting to sound like a lecture, I hope this post will make you consider trying different types of fish, and consider why it may be that so few species are eaten in the UK.  In truth, I was prompted to blog this when I realised that I rarely cook fish and I don’t know why not.  It can be extremely hard to find alternative fresh fish in your local supermarket.  Most fresh fish in supermarkets is filleted and packaged up and not on a wet fish counter unless your lucky.  The fillets don’t look like fish being presented trimmed, skinless and boneless or a thick fish steaks.  Does fish which looks like fish not sell?

Salmon and Tuna steaks appear and are cooked more like meat than fish.  Perhaps this is key in understanding why other fish don’t appeal.  Are the supermarkets playing safe and stocking what sells?  A more sinister, if speculative explanation for the small number of species on sale, may be that it is quicker and cheaper to produce boneless fillets from salmon, cod and tuna, than from other species.  Is the large supermarket’s desire to minimise costs whilst maintaining “quality” driving them to use endangered species?  Or is it simply that people don’t feel confident with fish they don’t know.

Within days of launching his campaign, Hugh had large chains rushing to drop suppliers and badge fresh fish with “sustainable”, “approved”, or “line caught” labels.  Sadly, they still stock the same few species.  I am nervous about buying expensive fish which I don’t know how to cook, which may have lots of bones or make the kitchen smell of fish.  One of the great things about the fish Hugh advocates is that they are cheap.  At the end of the day, if you’re nervous about fish, it’s easy to see why big juicy tuna and salmon steaks are a safe bet and good value.  However, variety is the spice of life.  With many of the fish Hugh believes we should eat being so affordable, it’s defintilely worth trying some of them during these more austere times.  In the words of Dr Pepper, “try it, you might like it…”

If you do fancy a spot of sea fishing, the best place to get information and book a trip is the Swansea Angling Centre, at Swansea Marina.  In there, you can get cards/leaflets for all the local fishing boat/charter trips.  Sightseeing & mackerel trips for about £25, 8hr Sea Bass fishing on a charter boat for £35 or mackerel trips for £15. 

Weather and other commitments meant that rather than go sea fishing, we opted to search for shell fish close to the cottage where we were staying.  The beach we were staying near was littered with razor clam shells.  We had read in the River Cottage Fish book that razor clams were tasty and delicious (and of course, free).   To “hunt” a razor clam, you search out their little burrow hole and sprinkle salt down it at low tide.  The clam tastes the salt, thinks the tide is coming in and pops their siphon up out of the sand, where upon you grab hold.  Pull too hard and it breaks off (but the clam grows a new one).  Then as the clam tries to dig, it will release its grip in the sand and you can slowly draw it out of the sand.  You can’t out dig razor clams as you can with other shell fish, because they dig downwards faster than you can.  That’s the theory, but lets just say I didn’t master the art of razor clamming.  

Having miserably failed at razor clammng, we switched our attention to a somewhat less mobile shellfish, Mussels.  At the Worms Head, at the south end of Rhosilli Bay, there were several million mussels to choose from.  The Worms Head is cut off from the mainland at high tide, so you must be careful to time your visit and not get cut off.  We okay-ed it with the coastguard station on the headland and ventured down onto the rocks.

The River Cottage Fish book is a tremendously useful book.  It has become my fish bible, with information about preparing, filleting, and cooking the fish, together with descriptions of the fish’s lifestyle and habitat.  My favourite part is that it discusses sustainable sources for the fish and indicates how sustainable different varieties are.  The book said Mussels spend their whole life living where they first land as tiny baby mussels.  That’s why some live on rocks which get exposed by the tide while others remain permanently submerged.  They spawn between May and August, so collecting is discouraged during this period.  That said, they are quite sustainable by comparison to other fish such as Haddock and Cod.  Make sure to collect more mature mussels, greater than 50mm in length.

As the photo shows, the ground was covered entirely with the shells of shellfish which had been eaten by birds.We filled a pot with enough mussels for a starter and headed back to the cottage. 

When driving around the Gower, we were taken aback by an intense smell of garlic in the air.  It came from wild garlic leaves growing by the side of the road.  Too good an opportunity to miss.  We stopped and collected some to go with our Mussels.

Mussels with Wild Garlic Leaves and Home Brewed Bitter

Soak the mussels overnight in sea water to allow them to purge out any sand or grit.  I didn’t have sea water, so just added a kilo of salt to the basin.  A tip is to add porridge oats as they irritate the mussels and make them filter out grit/sand faster.  You then wash the mussels, gently scraping off any barnacles or material stuck to the outside.  You slide a knife along the joint to remove the “beard” – fine silk like hairs with which the mussel anchored to the rock.

In butter, I softened some sliced onion and wild garlic leaves, collected from a hedgerow nearby.  Keep the heat low to avoid colouring the onion. 

Then I added a good slug of Matt’s Home Brew London Beer and a splash of vinegar (we only had rice vinegar, which we used).  When the mix started to steam, threw in the mussels.

You need to steam for 6-8 minutes, before serving up the mussels, shaking occasionally.  Because the mussels release any grit remaining inside them, you need to strain the liquor before serving it. 

I served up the mussels, discarding any which hadn’t opened, and garnished with the white wild garlic flowers.

I’ve never tasted such tender, sweet mussels.  The beer liquor was light and intense.  The wild garlic surprisingly pungent.  All in all it was a great success.  It was very satisfying to collect wild food.  You can’t get more fresh Mussels any other way.  There was almost no sand/grit in the Mussels, I think down to the lack of sediment at the Worm’s Head.

 Delicious.