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!

My Mum's Marmalade

Seville oranges are in the market. It’s time to make marmalade. The season is short so it’s now or next year. I’m not a big fan of marmalade – or any jam – on toast, but Dot is, and I think it’s cool so I like to make it. This attitude has got me into trouble in work before now. When I was a pastry chef in Liverpool I ordered a case of bitter oranges for no other reason than that they were in season. The next day a staggeringly large box appeared. The biggest batch I could reasonably muster in a day, and still get my other work done, didn’t nearly use half: I ran out of sugar; it took hours chopping up the rind as finely as possible, getting all sticky with pulp...

The Chef said I needed to get my priorities straight. He pointed out all the other things I should have been doing rather than “having a nice time making marmalade!”

– And what are you going to use it for?

– Um...

I hadn’t really thought about that... Of course there are plenty of ways to use it: steamed sponge puddings with custard; ice cream; sorbet; stuff with dribbles of dark chocolate sauce and bittersweet orange syrup intermingled; toast... Orangey dessert combos were created. I had a nice time. When I ought to have been doing something else...

When I bought my oranges, the lady at the stall trilled Qu’est-ce que c’est bon, la confiture d’oranges amères!* . And I thought I was the only marmalader in town! Clearly not. Although the British definitely love it more. We've invented a much cooler name...

As with most preserving escapades, the tricky bit is finding enough jars. The rest is a piece of... well, it’s easy.

Don’t forget to sterilize the jars. Wash in hot soapy water, rinse well and drain, upside-down, on a rack in the oven set to 140°C. They’ll be fine in there till you’re ready for them.

I bought just over a kilo of oranges – 7 fruit – for every 4 or 5 you’ll need a lemon. Unwaxed. Chuck in a pan with a thick base, large enough to comfortably accommodate all at once. Cover generously with water and boil for a couple of hours, till the fruit is soft and soggy. (You might need a weight to stop them from bobbing above the level of the water).

Put a few small plates or saucers in the fridge to cool.

How much sugar?! I had enough. Just.

Once soft, remove all the fruit, drain a bit, and weigh. Reserve the liquor. You will need 2lb of sugar and 1 pint of liquor for every lb of fruit. This seems like a lot of sugar. It is. But it is necessary. Dissolve your sugar in your measured liquor (if you don’t have enough, add water).

Meanwhile prepare the oranges and lemons: chop into quarters and scoop out the seeds and flesh into a bowl. These citrus innards contain the pectin that will set your marmalade so they need tying up in a tea towel or muslin, then adding to the sugary liquid. Next, scrape your petals of fruit to reduce the amount of pith on your ‘bits’. This should also be reserved, chopped up a little, and added to the mix. Then slice the skins as finely as possible – or in big bits, if you’re bold or lazy – and into the pot too.

Weigh. Quarter. Scoop. Depith. Chop. Chop. Chop. Sticky.

The jam should be boiled fairly fiercely until it reaches around 104° (obviously, be careful – don’t walk off). I have recently acquired a thermometer to give me an idea but you can tell by looking; it starts to appear jammy. It could take between 10 mins to half an hour. In spite of my thermometer, I still do the grannies’ jam trick with saucers: when you think the mix looks right spoon a blob onto a cold plate, return to the fridge for a minute to cool properly, then push a line through the syrup with your finger. If the surface crinkles, the marmalade is done. If not, boil a midge’s longer, and try with the next plate...

The marmalade will be cloudy, because we included the pith. If this is upsetting to you, omit the pith. Don’t leave out the bits of skin though. That’s just wrong. I have seen recipes with whisky thrown in at the end; this seems unnecessary to me. Try it if you want, but I’d rather drink the wee dram to perk me up for potting!

When ready, remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly before filling your jars – still hot from the oven. Fill right to the top with your mix. It should look like proper marmalade already! Don’t be tempted though, to stick your finger in and have a lick! Ouch! Sugar burns are amongst the very worst. Screw or clamp the lids on and turn upside-down to sterilise completely. Put a little label on to remind yourself when you made it – you’ll probably be eating this stuff for years!

And don’t forget to make sponge pudding! Yum... And custard! Mix half-and-half with golden syrup so the Victoria sponge’s lava cascade is not too bitter. Mmmm... I might make that next...

1 kilo of oranges makes this many jars of marmalade. Mum know's best!

What she said. ↓

* Golly! Marmalade/bitter orange jam is nice!

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!