Mullet

I went fishing again on Monday; a pastime that has the ability to make me feel uniquely foolish. In spite of this – or maybe even because of it – I came home with a couple of beauties!

The grey mullet looks like a softy. Seaweed eating, with big rubbery lips, and the nice but dim expression of a clodhopping puppy, it’s difficult to imagine a more benign fish. They are beautifully striped along the length of the body, and look a bit like a divvy version of the American striped bass.

Here in France they have a reputation for being terrible to eat, as they are the fish one sees mooching around the port eating chips and sewage pipe sea lettuce. Fair enough, I don’t think I’d eat one of them either, but my fish were caught, with a bit of bread on a hook, on an inlet, just 100 yards from the open sea. The first was beautiful, with a flavour and texture very similar to bass. Raw, I could taste the seaweed diet, but once cooked it was delicate, with deep white flesh, and really superb. We’ll have the other one tonight! Yum! It will be interesting to see if there is a disintegration in quality of the flavour between the first, eaten before rigor mortis even had chance to set in, and the second, eaten 2 days later, after the rigour has waned (I hope. As I write it’s still stiff – is that bad?). It’s still spanking fresh by the standards of shop-bought fish. I’m sure fish mongers often deliberately store fish before sale. Is this because they develop flavour, like beef? I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mystery to me...

Of course I didn’t actually catch them. Have you not been paying attention? I stood by the water, not knowing what I was doing, doubtless with a particularly amusing choice of bait for the situation. A man who’d been set up nearby came over and offered me a share of his catch – his wife would moan if he came back with too much! Haha! What a nice man. (He must have had his eye on me. Did he take pity because I looked like a tool?) I sheepishly but gratefully accepted. He told me about the bread as bait, and that the mullet puts up a spiffing fight, making the fishing a crack-a-laugh! Combined with their dim-witted appearance, this made me feel a bit sad to be bopping it on the head, slicing through its gills to drain the blood before taking it home in a carrier bag. Not sad enough to not do it, I might add, but still...

I can't not make cevice when I get a bit of fish as fresh as this - lemon, cumin, garlic, chillies, shallots and corriander. I've not tried it with grey mullet before: it worked a treat!

Main course was the thick end of the fillet fried in some bacon fat and served with some simple greens. Briefly boiled brouttes*, dressed with some warm olive oil and softened garlic. Clean and tasty - a top way to welcome the beginnings of spring. 

Two days later: no noticeable deterioration in flavour.

Dot said she fancied ginger. It turns out a ginger mullet can be a winner! A few slivers of chilli, garlic and shallots to acompany the ginger, sandwiched between the fish, which was steamed for maybe five minutes. Plonked on top of some moroccan-style chick peas with olive oil and cumin. We had a little sweet and sour dressing made from white vinegar, sweet soy, a drop of nam pla (fish sauce), a scattering of the aromatics that stuffed the mullet, plus some herbs for freshness - mint, basil and corriander.

All of these dishes would be great with bass, but honestly I thought mullet was at least as good.

I might go fishing more often!!

* Young shoots of cabbage. They are pleasantly similar to purple sprouting brocolli. Yum!

Donostia. A Fiesta of Pescado

A foodist holiday in North-West Spain is a mixed bag. Ours steered clear of the posh places, which, I expect, run the full spectrum from simply wonderful to should-have-been-a-lot-more-bloody-wonderful. One day we’ll go to a crazy, fancy, Basque food-cathedral gaff, but it’s not really what excites me: I’m too stingy. On other trips we’ve been initially wowed, only to be largely let down. Spanish food’s supposed to be cool and interesting isn’t it? The ham is amazing, even the cheap stuff’s really good. Tortilla, the heroic spuddy omelette-cum national crutch, is probably my all time bestestever sandwich filling (especially with a bit of jamón on the side) – but I had to come to Spain to realise it could also be shite. Bocadillo de lomo*! Om nom nom!!! Maybe that’s my favourite... Salt cod is great, hake is great. Any of these things done well, on their own or combined, will make my day. But not every day. Why is it so hard to find vegetables? Pimientos de padron doesn’t redress the balance – fried mini green peppers are tasty, with a little crunch from rock salt sprinkled on top. All good stuff, but where’s the salad, hombre? I want a radish. I’m pining for broccoli, for fuck’s sake...**

With this in mind we booked self-catering in San Sebastián. We would still eat pintxos (the Basque tapas, pronounced ‘pinchos’) and drink beer and have fun, but when we got back to base we could have some carrots.

The pintxo bars† were what brought us here. Last year we’d spent the afternoon, and had to drive home after only two little beers and a fantastic plate of pulpo gallega (octopus with olive oil and paprika). The temptation was to stay and drink and eat – and walk back to France... Instead we promised to return. 

The Basques call it Donostia (which, surprisingly, also translates as Saint Sebastian). It’s rather a grand, sophisticated place with an old town, a new town and three spectacular beaches, but also a vague scruffiness that we are always struck by when entering Spain from France††. I quite like a bit of scruff, mind you. We headed straight out to the old town to fill ourselves with ham, eggs, spuds, salt cod, grease, bread and beer!

A good night. I wanted to check out the fish market so at the end of a very lazy morning we bimbled into the Bretxa food hall. It was still very busy and the fish stalls were predictably great. There were exclusively whole fish on display. They were prepared to order by fishmongers wielding big curvy cutlass-type knives. I surprised myself by recognising most of the fish: bass, bream, maigre, pollack, cod, herring‡, mackerel, monkfish, dover sole, lemon sole, brown gurnard and, my favourite, weever. And hake, hake, hake. They were all buying hake.

All the stalls were exceptional (and dirt cheap) by my standards, but the one that held my attention was like an art installation‡‡. It didn’t have the most spectacular display, there was no snaking queue – the fish looked top notch and it was displayed simply and prettily, but the guy at work behind the counter was mesmeric. I must have peered at the gliding and flicking of his knife for half an hour before I realised I ought to have taken a ticket to be in the queue.  I took one and continued to stare, transfixed. He was a magician: relaxed, unhurried, deliberate, smooth, delicate but effortless. While I watched he must have prepared five hake in exactly the same way, all perfectly portioned and placed ready to be wrapped up for his discerning customers. He was very cool. I think he’s my new hero... When my turn came I hadn’t even decided what to buy. I got what the man before me got (to go with his hake). I thought it was a fresh herring. I’ve only just found out it wasn’t. I also bought raw prawns and a few fancy-looking clams. ¡Gracias señor! Brilliant! Grab some incredibly lovely ham and salchichon, don’t forget the veg, find Dot (by now, almost suicidal), and off home for a luncheon feast! Via a swift cerveza of course!

Scad, or horse mackerel (with broccoli!). Weever cevice. Yum and Yum!

Hake 'bianco', with paprika - so 'rojo'

Merluza con salsa verde - hake in parsley sauce.

*Thin boneless pork loin chops slapped in the middle of a baguette. I don’t particularly like the red stuff that has been marinated in paprika and garlic. Fresh and plain is where it’s at – grilled with plenty of salt and perhaps a squeeze of lemon. Don’t overcook it and let it rest in the bread so that you keep all the juices! Om nom nom indeed!  God, i’m starving...

** Broccoli’s for girls. Not purple sprouting – that’s for winners and kings!

† Check out the link for a very informative and useful list of pintxo place recommendations. Don’t be a slave to recommendations, though. Follow your nose and try lots of places. You don’t have to stay if it’s not up to much... You might end up getting a little drunk, mind.

†† The cake shops are an interesting example of this. Go to a patisserie in France and then into one in Spain. You’ll see what I mean.

‡ However, a bit of internet research, and the herring that I bought turns into a ‘horse mackerel’, or scad. Oh well. Serves me right for allowing myself to feel clever...

‡‡ Not in the boring and pointless sense. Although, perhaps Dot wouldn’t agree...   

Ceviche for breakfast?

Day two of the hangover and we need to do something. I always look forward to a fishing trip, although the excitement is diluted by novice-nerves and the goading of rationality, which confidently predicts frustration – but hey, you never know!  

We have lived the dream. On almost my first trip, on the dingle peninsular, west coast of Ireland, we hit gold. My torchlight caught a silver flicker through the frothy shallows. It was an instant of intense adrenaline injection – I hadn’t even been sure there was anything on the line. Incredibly, a fat and most un-stinky fishy thing bounced onto the beach. A seabass! Crikey, crumbs and carruthers! A real one... A big one... And I had caught it! Blimey... It was truly one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life! Dot and I danced about, whooping and laughing in the black deserted bay. The tide had decided we start as the sun was setting, on a craggy wee cove down the road from our cottage. Pleasingly, the darkness had settled and camouflaged the cack-handedness of our efforts. We’d been there less than an hour.  It all seemed so unlikely. So much sea, a little half-dead worm: I’d made bacon stew for when we came back, cold and confused...

Bollocks to bacon stew! We skipped home early – why bother carry on? It was time for a feast!

The tail went for a ceviche starter, leaving two fat steaks, garnished with a bit of my stew. It was one of my Greatest Ever Moments! We got up early for the next high tide and caught two more!! We were the finest fishermen alive!!!

My brother in law is from Peru and a very good cook. He taught me how to make ceviche. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate really fresh fish. It’s dead easy, and (handily for the beach) doesn’t involve any cooking. In Peru they eat it for breakfast and use bass, as I rather smugly did that day. Bream is good too, but gurnard, and, a recent discovery, weever (vive in French) are my personal preference. Fresh-caught mackerel is another winner*.

Whatever your fish, it has to be filleted, skinned and pin-boned, and then chopped into healthy bite-sized pieces. Crush up a scrap of garlic with some salt, season your fish with this and some more salt and pepper, a sprinkle of ground cumin, plus a bit of finely chopped chilli (or cayenne, or piment d’espelette, but fresh and red is best). Give it all a mix and squeeze over the juice of a lemon or lime (not jiff!). Mix again and taste the juice. Add more of any ingredient, if need be, to make it zingy but balanced: sweet, spicy and delicious!

Put the lot on a nice plate and cover with thin slices of red onion or shallots (and celery if you like) and some barely-chopped coriander or parsley leaves (I prefer coriander).

Leave for 5 – 20 mins for the citrus to cook the fish. The fresher the fish, the nicer it is raw, and so the less time you will have to wait! Eat on wintery French beach** with plenty of bread to mop up the juices! Yum!

a memorable breakfast. cooked on driftwood on the beach where it was caught.
I've since been told that it was below the legal size. Ooops! We honestly didn't know...

France hasn’t been so kind. Numerous trips and not a sausage. My utter incompetence is embarrassing. I have no idea what I’m doing and can’t bring myself to advertise this by asking a local fisherman for help. I’m basically hoping for another dose of beginner’s luck...

Hope springs eternal though. Today, as always, my tackle box contains a lemon, a bag of salt and pepper, and some piment d’espelette. Be prepared, innit.

Happy new year! Tight lines...

* Basically, any very fresh fish is good. White and meaty, as a general rule. Mackerel has to be spanking fresh, or it might be a bit stinky...

** Hopefully, one day...

Shocked!