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Catherine Evans

~ Creative Artist and Food & Lifestyle Blogger

Catherine Evans

Tag Archives: Fish

Brill with lemon butter, samphire and foraged sea beet

03 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by catherineevans63 in Food and Drink

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Brill, Brill fish, Broadstairs, Butter, Cannons Fishmongers, Catherine Evans, Fish, Fishing, foraging, Fresh fish, Fruits de Mer, Fruits de Mer Broadstairs, Lemon, Pan fried brill, Ramsgate, Samphire, Sea beet, Thanet, Turbot, Wild spinach

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There is nothing quite as wonderful as fish at its freshest; bright clear eyes, firm flesh with lovely shimmery scales, bright red gills covered with clear slime and a fresh odour, and belly walls intact. Fish is packed with essential vitamins and minerals and prepared and served simply, perhaps with a salad and some new potatoes, it makes a healthy, delicious and nutritious lunch or supper. Fresh fish is also very versatile – marinate it and serve it raw in sushi or ceviche, poach it, roast it, stuff the belly with herbs and grill or bake it, steam it, barbecue it, curry it, pan fry it, the possibilities are endless

In Ramsgate and Broadstairs, where I live, fresh fish from the fishmongers is high quality, competitively priced compared to the supermarkets with a good variety to choose from despite all the bureaucracy, fish quotas and declining fish stocks which have battered the British fishing industry over the decades; let’s not get on to the politics of that here just yet, suffice to say that UK fishing rights are currently taking centre stage in negotiations with the EU regarding any Brexit deal we might strike and the future of our fishermen’s livelihood, and that of the fish that swim in our seas, are being fought for tooth and nail.

I shop mostly at the two remaining local fishmongers, either Fruit de Mer of 10 The Broadway, Broadstairs who have 15 or 16 day boats, or Cannons stall on a Friday or Saturday at Ramsgate Harbour. At one time, fishmongers in Thanet were plentiful – in Ramsgate alone, there used to be 8 wet fish shops – but one by one they shut up shop as the once-buoyant industry became ever more unpredictable and constrained by red tape, fishing quotas and climate change and, more generally in the economic stakes, Thanet got left behind.

Owned by Jason Llewellyn, Fruits de Mer are the last remaining fishmongers in Broadstairs. Jason began working there at the age of 11 and when he was 17 he bought out the business. Fruits de Mer are renowned suppliers of high-quality fresh fish and shellfish in the south-east of England and are one of the finest in the country. They source sashimi-grade fresh fish and shellfish daily from the clear waters around the Thanet coastline. Their catch is sourced and landed in an ethical and sustainable way and arrives within hours at the shop where the high quality lobsters and crabs are prepared, cooked and dressed to order.

All their fishing boats are under 10 metres and each boat fishes either single-handedly or with only one extra crew member. Dedicated potting boats target the local shellfish, while the netting and lining boats target the array of fish including bass, turbot, brill, skate and gurnard, the focus always being on what species are in season.

Fruits de Mer supply some 200 fine dining establishments and public houses throughout Kent, as well as Michelin-starred restaurants, with the most amazing fish including line-caught bass, turbot, brill and Dover sole. They have also supplied Buckingham Palace and major international events, including The Monte Carlo Grand Prix, and various television programmes such as The Great British Menu. However, what isn’t reserved for the shop and its regular customers will often land on European tables every day.

Situated opposite the Clock Tower and often served by Michael Penn (who himself once owned a fish shop), Cannons Fishmongers and Seafood Stall on Ramsgate Harbour Parade are a family-owned business established in the late 1880s and are the only remaining fishmongers in Ramsgate. They sell quality fresh local fish and shellfish and offer pre-ordered shellfish platters for £30 comprising whole lobster, dressed crab, oysters, langoustines, crevettes and shell-on prawns, and are proud to supply many of the businesses in the area. Specialities on the stall include local lobsters and crabs, but the locally caught fish including sea bass, cod, skate and haddock I also highly recommend. Again, a fresh and sustainably-sourced catch is key and arrives on the stall within hours of being landed. Now in his mid-seventies, Michael has been a fishmonger for over 40 years and went to work at Cannon’s 14 years ago when his own shop closed. He once told me that he could not contemplate retirement as he would get bored and selling fish keeps him feeling young at heart.

Brill (scophthalmus rhombus)is a flat fish in the turbot family but without the fancy turbot prices and is often found in deeper waters in the English Channel. Similar in taste and appearance to turbot, brill has a distinctive light brown skin with white, black and grey speckles all over the body and beautiful creamy white flesh on the underside. It has a sweet taste and firm texture and is amazing either pan fried or grilled. Brill will feed on fish but mostly prawns, crustaceans and marine worms and can reach up to 3ft long and 20 lb in weight.

During the spring, fully-grown brill do venture into shallower water to spawn in sandy or muddy ground and may also live on shingle seabeds. They are not fussy eaters and will interchange between scavenging and hunting. They will search the seabed for any marine worms, invertebrates, lobsters, crabs, prawns and will also hunt any low-lying fish and sand eels. Because of their likeness to turbot, the two species are often confused, however turbot have a rounder body shape and rougher skin whereas brill are more elongated and are smoother. Often trawled, brill are a species on the IUCN list of Least Concern as the commercial pressure on this sea fish is not regarded as a cause for worry.

The best time to target brill is in the spring when it is in season, although boat anglers are able to catch the fish pretty often because of the deeper, offshore water they prefer, anything from 10 metres to 100 metres deep. Most shore anglers will only catch brill during the spring breeding season when they are in range at a distance over sandy or shingle sea beds. The best way to maximise the distance of casts is by using clipped down rigs with hooks 1/0 – 2/0 in size to enable larger specimens to be caught, but smaller brill are still able to fit the hook into their mouth, tempted by a bait of mackerel strip, peeler crab, squid and worm when the fish is present and feeding.

The brill I used for my recipe comprised two large fillets from Fruits de Mer in Broadstairs. which I bought and cooked in early May along with a good handful of samphire from the same place, plus a side of wilted sea beet (wild spinach) foraged from Pegwell Bay.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 2)

  • 2 large local fillets of brill, skin on
  • Handful of Samphire
  • Sea beet or spinach
  • Unsalted butter
  • Zest and juice of half a lemon
  • Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Rinse the fillets of brill in clean, cold running water and pat dry on kitchen paper. Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and set aside.

Meanwhile pick the tough stalks off the foraged sea beet, or alternatively a regular bag of spinach, place in a colander and wash well under cold running water. Shake well and set aside.

Place the bunch of samphire in a colander and rinse well under cold running water. Shake well and set aside.

Place a skillet on a medium heat, add a generous knob of butter and a little olive oil to the pan. The olive oil will prevent the butter from burning. When the butter has melted and starts to sizzle, place the brill fillets in the skillet one by one, skin side down, holding each fillet by the tail and placing it gently in the pan away from you to avoid splashes and scalding. Cook the fillets for 2-3 minutes on each side, flipping over when the skin side down starts to look crispy and the flesh opaque. To check, gently ease a fish slice or palette knife underneath the fillet, turn the fillet over and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove the brill fillets from the skillet and place on absorbent kitchen paper or a j-cloth while you make the sauce.

Meanwhile place a saucepan or skillet over a medium heat and then add a drop of salted water. Once it starts to simmer, add the spinach leaves and wilt down for about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat.

To make the sauce for the fish, add more butter to the skillet and toss in the samphire turning quickly and add the zest and juice of half a lemon and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss the samphire again and remove from the heat.

To plate up, remove the wilted spinach leaves from the pan and place some in the centre of each plate. Place a brill fillet on the spinach, skin side down, and then spoon the samphire and the lemon butter mixture over the top of the fish. Serve with buttered new potatoes or a generous spoon of creamy mashed potatoes.

NOTES – Brill is also delicious served with a lobster sauce or gremolata or baked whole with green pesto.

CULLEN SKINK

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by catherineevans63 in Food and Drink

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Tags

Aberdeenshire, Chowder, Coast, Cullen Skink, Fish, Fish Soup, Haddock, Milk, Moray, Ramsgate, Recipe, Scotland, Scottish, Scottish Soup, Smoked Haddock, Soup, traditional

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Earlier last month, Dan and I attended the International Women’s Day lunch at The Ramsgate Tandoori, in aid of local MENCAP services. We were all invited to dress up in our national costume (I don’t have one) and bring along a dish to share.

The dish I chose to prepare was Cullen Skink, because my paternal grandmother was Scottish, and fish and vegetables in their many forms are also my favourite things to eat. Okay, it might have been more convenient to pop down to my local Waitrose and buy a tin of Baxters’ Cullen Skink but although it has a wonderful flavour, it is never quite the same as homemade.

Cullen Skink is a thick Scottish soup similar in look and consistency to a chowder but with a gutsier flavour. It usually comprises smoked haddock, potatoes and onions. Traditionally, a Cullen Skink uses finnan haddie, but one may use any other undyed smoked haddock – and let’s face it, if you live south of the border, undyed smoked haddock is probably the best and closest you are likely to get to the real thing. On no account should you used the bright orange-yellow dyed fish often found in the supermarket, as the ‘smoke’ and the flavour are artificial and bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real thing.

Finnan haddie is also known as Finnan haddock, Finnan, Finny Haddock or even Findrum speldings. It is cold-smoked haddock in accordance to a regional method of smoking in the north-east of Scotland, using green wood and peat. Its origin is not entirely certain. Some believe that the delicacy comes from the hamlet of Findon, or Finnan, near Aberdeen, whilst others insist that the name represents a distortion of the name of a village, Findhorn, which lies at the mouth of the River Findhorn in Moray (which today encompasses the Highlands and Aberdeenshire). This dispute is rooted in the 18th century but with little trace, as adherents refuse to acknowledge even a grain of possibility of the alternative view. An early 20th century cookbook gives testimony to a fire in a fish-curing house in Portlethen, very close to Findon. Whatever the truth, Finnan haddie may have been a popular Aberdeenshire dish since the 1640s.

However, despite its popularity in Scotland, the dish took much longer to catch on south of the border and only caught on in London during the 1830s. In the old days, due to the light smoking of the fish, it only had a short shelf life of between one and three days. Therefore, although the fish might travel from boat to the Aberdeen table within 12 hours of being caught, the distance to London made it almost impossible to avoid the fish spoiling and so began its debut in London only once it could be shipped by mail coach and then more widely available once the railway link between Aberdeen and London was constructed in the 1840s.

The authentic preparation of Finnan haddie is to roast or grill whole pieces of fish over high heat, but it is often served for breakfast lightly poached in milk until just opaque. It is also an important ingredient of kedgeree and omelette Arnold Bennett, as served at the Wolesley in Piccadilly.

Cullen Skink is a popular starter at formal Scottish dinners – which perhaps might be complete with tartan, bagpipes and haggis and more than a few ‘wee drams’. The dish is a popular everyday meal across the northeast of Scotland but can also easily be found in some of the Edinburgh eating houses and pub restaurants. A few years ago, my friend Lorraine and I travelled to Edinburgh on a family history research expedition, and on our last evening we dined on a wonderful Cullen Skink followed by a calorie-busting Cranachan.

Like many local recipes, there can be several slight variations. Some cooks use milk instead of water and others add single cream. Traditionally, Cullen Skink is served with a good bread, but it can be eaten just as it is; at the March event we ate ours with curry!

Curiously, the word ‘skink’ derives from the Middle Dutch ‘schenke’ meaning ‘shin, hough, knuckle’ Over time, of course, the word has developed the secondary meaning of a soup, especially one containing meat – although there is no meat in a Cullen Skink, only fish!

I locally sourced my undyed smoked haddock from Cannons fishmongers on Ramsgate Harbour. The family have two boats and have been in the fishing trade since 1887 and their produce is always fresh, of high quality and very reasonably priced. Their cod and haddock cut through like butter and are easy to skin. The piece of haddock I used in my recipe cost around £9 for well over a pound in weight. If you don’t like skinning and boning haddock then ask your fishmonger to do it, but I undertook all preparation myself. Mine is a lower fat version of the original.

INGREDIENTS

  • 500g fillet natural smoked haddock, skinned and boned
  • 500ml semi-skimmed milk
  • A few peppercorns
  • Small knob of butter
  • 2 leeks, finely chopped
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 700ml vegetable or fish stock
  • 3 large white potatoes, cubed
  • Splash of dry white wine (optional)
  • Bay leaf
  • Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  • Squeeze of lemon
  • Good handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
  • 2 spring onions (scallions) or chives, finely chopped

 

  1. Place the smoked haddock in a large pan with the milk and the peppercorns and lightly poach over a low heat until just opaque. Carefully remove haddock and set aside, also retaining the poaching juices.
  2. In a separate large pan, heat the knob of butter taking care not to burn it and add the diced potatoes and the onions and leeks and cook until softened. This is best done over a low heat and a piece of tin foil placed directly on top of the vegetables, allowing them to sweat rather than colour and prevent any charred bits.
  3. Add the garlic right at the end and stir for a moment or two and then add the stock, the reserved milk, bay leaf, wine (if using) and chicken stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Remove the bay leaf and then season the soup with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir through and set aside. You may, if you wish, put the soup through a blender and then through a sieve to thicken before returning to the pan but I keep mine rustic! Some of the liquids will have reduced down in the cooking process so the soup shouldn’t be very runny. If the soup is a little runny and you don’t have a blender, simply mix a tablespoon of cornflour with a drop of milk and stir it through the soup over a low heat, to thicken. Add the cornflour mixture little by little until the soup has the consistency you require.
  4. Meanwhile, carefully skin and flake the fish, removing any bones, and season with lemon juice. Finely chop the parsley and the spring onions or chives.
  5. Add the fish to the soup pan, return to the heat and reheat for a few minutes until piping hot. Sprinkle over the parsley and spring onions or chives and serve immediately with some good soda bread or sourdough.

OPTIONS:

You could if you wish lightly poach a few free-range eggs or quails’ eggs and lay one atop each bowlful of soup, to serve.

If poaching and skinning haddock feels like too much of a chore, try using ready-cooked kipper or smoked mackerel fillets but do try to remove the skin and any visible bones before flaking. It’s not authentic but will still be delicious.

 

As for the fundraising event, it was a great success and we raised £500 for local MENCAP services!

Catherine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FISH FOR FREE

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by catherineevans63 in Food and Drink

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Baked, Beach, Birchington, Broadstairs, Chilli, Coast, English Channel, Fish, Food, Kent, Limpets, Margate, Mussels, North Sea, Oysters, Ramsgate, Recipe, Sea, Shellfis, Snails, Steamed, Thames Estuary, Thanet, Westgate

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Recently Dan and I have been out foraging a couple of times for shellfish along the part of the Thanet coastline that faces the North Sea, east of the Thames Estuary between Herne Bay and Margate. Once Iron Age settlements, the coastline is flatter than the beaches around Ramsgate and Broadstairs (which lie on the far eastern tip beside the English Channel and are only 30 miles or so from France) and are muddier too. Be prepared for your feet to sink into the sand.

Until around 200 years ago, the Isle of Thanet was separated from mainland Kent when the channel between the two became silted up. Formerly part of the channel, the area to the west of Birchington village, between Birchington and Herne Bay, is now low-lying marshland. To the beaches east of Birchington are chalk cliffs and cliff stacks at Grenham Bay, Beresford Gap and Epple Bay, and a sea wall along the foot of the cliffs inhibits further erosion. The geology of the Isle of Thanet mostly consists of chalk, deposited when the land lay below the sea. The Isle became exposed above sea-level once the English Channel emerged between Kent and France and the sea-level declined. Today, the entire north-east Kent coast is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

I guess you could say I belong to the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall School of cuisine, in that I believe that foraged food when it is wild and in season is food at its best, and once prepared in a dish one can really taste the difference and the freshness of the ingredients.

Two or three pieces of equipment and attire are absolutely necessary when out foraging. Firstly, a pair of wellies as you should expect to get caked in mud; secondly, a waterproof jacket in case of wind and rain; thirdly, a bucket of seawater for shellfish and/or a trug for gathering edible plants such as samphire and Alexanders; and lastly, if you enjoy oysters exactly as they come, an oyster shucker with which to open the oysters so you can savour their salty freshness straight from the sea. As you pick the shellfish, and if you are not eating any oysters immediately, pop them straight into your bucket of seawater and be careful not to spill or tip over your bucket on the way home.

The best time to forage for shellfish is at low tide and, whatever you do, never forage during the summer months from May to August as this is their main growing season. It is safer to harvest your mussels, oysters, winkles and slipper limpets from the rockpools rather than on the beach itself and take only the larger, more mature mussels and oysters, leaving the little ones to continue growing. The beards of the mussels should be visible and the shells closed, and the oyster shells should also be closed. If they are ‘resting’ and slightly open touch them gently to check that they are alive; their shells should close. If this does not happen then they are dead and are to be avoided.

Always forage at a low or receding tide, as if the tide is coming in you can very quickly be cut off from the mainland and stranded, putting yourself at risk of drowning and in need of rescue. Remember that the sea is as merciless as she is beautiful and takes no prisoners with her power. If you are unsure or something doesn’t feel right, head back to shore immediately for your own safety and that of others.

Also remember not to forage during a ‘Red Tide’, which is when the algae bloom can taint bivalves – such as clams, oysters, mussels and scallops – and is highly toxic if consumed. The surface of the water will have a red or brown tinge.

Once we had gathered sufficient oysters, mussels and slipper limpets in our bucket of seawater we made our way back to the car and home.

The preparation of wild seafood is a lengthy one. Oysters, mussels and limpets, for example, will need to be left to soak in a large bowl or bucket of fresh water for at least 30 minutes, in order to ‘purge’ themselves and filter out some of the sand. Wild mussels in particular are very sandy and bearded and they and oysters are normally covered with mini barnacles. If one fails to soak mussels for sufficient time, sand will still be trapped in the mollusc once it is cooked and will be unpleasant to eat. However, do not keep mussels or oysters in fresh water for a prolonged time otherwise they will die.

If you do not wish to eat mussels and oysters right away, you may store them dry in a single layer in the refrigerator, placing a damp kitchen towel over them. Alternatively, you may store them in a perforated tray OVER ice in the refrigerator but never IN ice, or they will die and will be unsafe to eat. Discard any that have cracked shells. Remember, if shells are slightly open, tap gently and they should close. If they do not, then they are no longer alive.

When our shellfish had been soaking for 30 minutes, Dan removed them from the fresh water and scraped and scrubbed off the barnacles under running water and removed the beards from the mussels by grabbing the brown threads between his fingers and pulling them firmly but carefully back and forth and from side to side, easing them away from the hinge. He then returned the cleaned mussels and oysters in a separate container of cold water to continue filtration.

Native to the East coast of North America, Slipper limpets are a kind of sea snail and are an invasive species in the UK and Europe, known to damage oyster beds, thus providing even more of an excuse to eat them. They must not be used as bait or thrown back into the sea because of the damage they cause. Their Latin name is Crepidula Fornicata, but they have many other names including common Atlantic slippersnail, boat shell, fornicating slipper snail and Atlantic Slipper Limpet, and they fasten together in stacks. The smaller shells at the top of the stack are male and the ones at the bottom are female. As the stack grows, the males transform into females and can thus be defined as sequential hermaphrodites. Shells vary in size from 20mm to 50mm, and the maximum recorded shell length is 56mm.

The slipper limpet sea snail has an arched, rounded shell, inside of which is a white “deck” making the shell look like a boat or slipper. Some shells are more arched than others. If you see a single slipper limpet on the shore it will more than likely be dead.

The slipper limpet has almost no predators in Europe and can flourish on several types of hard bottoms and shellfish banks. Thankfully, further expansion to the north is most likely inhibited by low temperatures during the winter which can slow down its development. There have been attempts in France – notably at Mont St Michel, Brittany – to harvest and market the snail, as it is nutritious and versatile and is similar to a cockle in taste and texture. They have a high protein, yellow disc of meat approximately one inch wide and can be eaten raw or gently cooked.

After their filtration Dan removed them carefully from their shells and set them aside. I put them on top of a cheese and tomato pizza, along with some mussels, and finished the pizza with coriander, chilli, tomatoes and a drizzle of garlic-infused olive oil and some freshly ground black pepper, and baked the pizza in oven at 200C fan for around 8-10 minutes, by which time the dough and toppings were cooked through and the mussels had opened.

Slipper limpets and mussels can be gently steamed and their liquor boiled down into stock or broth and the liquor itself can be used as a substitute for clam juice.

Be careful when preparing oysters and, whatever you do, never use a sharp knife to open, or ‘shuck’, their shells as it is dangerous to do so and you will probably break off the tip of the knife. If you do not possess an oyster knife, or shucker, use a screwdriver instead. An oyster knife is short, thick and blunt and a good one can be bought via. Ebay for under £12.00. It is also advisable to wear an apron, to avoid getting dirty.

Hold the oyster curved-side down on a chopping board, keeping a folded tea towel between the shell and your hand, to help you get a good grip and protect your hand. Locating the hinge between the top and bottom shell, insert the knife tip into the crack, push hard and gradually prise off the top shell. This may take a little while and patience may be needed, but just take your time to avoid getting flustered. Once you have prised the shell open, discard the top shell. If there is any seawater in the bottom shell with the oyster, endeavour to keep it there and pick out any fragment of shell. If you are eating the shellfish raw, place the oysters on a plate around a heap of rock salt or crushed ice, season it with a little freshly ground black pepper, a dash of lemon juice and Tabasco sauce, for example, and tip the oyster into your mouth, savouring its salty freshness.

Another good way of eating oysters is by baking them. Dan doesn’t like raw oysters, likening them to ‘swallowing snot’. After shucking the oysters, we placed them on a baking tray and I garnished them with some freshly chopped chilli, grated cheddar, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, chopped coriander and a drizzle of garlic oil and popped them into a fan oven at 200C for about 15 minutes until they were cooked through and the cheese was bubbling. Served with some good granary spelt bread from the local baker’s they made him a hearty, nutritious supper.

You could also top the oysters with some chopped smoked bacon or pancetta, or simply some breadcrumbs and perhaps a little pesto or tapenade. The possibilities are endless; all you need is a little imagination and courage to experiment.

As for us, we shall be foraging again and trying out some new recipe ideas.

 

Catherine

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