Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [226]
If steaks are to be grilled, it is wise to marinade them first (oil, lemon, garlic); or if there is not time for this, wrap them in foil before grilling (buttered foil, plus lemon, finely chopped onion and so on). The parcels can always be opened for the last part of the cooking in order to brown the tops.
FLYING FISH Atheriniformes spp.
Several varieties are caught in the tropical and sub-tropical seas of the world. Their flight is more apparent than the garfish’s or saury’s, lasting for quite a few seconds with the help of the huge pectoral fins which sustain the leaping movements of the tail. Their head is a conventional fish-shape, with no protracted beak. When you spread out the spiny fins, they give an almost bird-like impression of flight.
Flying fish used to come to this country only as frozen, grey-black creatures, about 20–25 cm (8–10 inches) long, fins plastered to their body by ice. However, I have occasionally been able to buy flying fish from enterprising fishmongers. In my experience, it is not the flavour or the texture of flying fish that is so remarkable but their beautiful shape with the wing-like fins that enable them to leap from the sea.
When grilled, the flesh is firm, almost white, pinkish-brownish, in nice flakes. It has a slightly cured taste, with a hint of buckling about it. It is not as oily as mackerel, but richer than garfish. As we ate it the first time, I reflected that fish from warm seas do not have the flavour of northern fish. Many people have said this so I don’t think that the observation is a matter of cold-climate chauvinism.
The recipes for gurnard would also be suitable for flying fish; so would some of the baked herring and mackerel recipes on pp. 182–5 and 223–7.
FLYING FISH PIE
Serves 4–6
3 kg (1½ lb) fillets of flying fish
salt, pepper
butter
1 kg (2 lb) yams
1 large onion
1 large tomato
2 hard-boiled eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons groundnut or sunflower oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
6 tablespoons dry sherry
Season the fillets and fry them lightly on both sides in butter. Then cut the pieces in two. Peel and cook the yams, cool and slice thinly. Slice the onion thinly, also the tomato and the hard-boiled eggs. Beat together the egg yolks, oil, melted unsalted butter, Worcestershire sauce and sherry.
Butter a deep dish lavishly. Put in half the fish; scatter on top half the onion-tomato-egg mixture. Then cover neatly with half the yams. Repeat with another layer, and brush the top with melted butter. Pour over the egg-yolk mixture.
Bake in an oven preheated to gas 4, 180°C (350°F) for about half an hour until the top is brown and everything heated through. Be prepared to give it a little longer, but avoid overcooking at all costs.
FRESHWATER CRAYFISH Astacus pallipes & A. fluviatilis
Pollution has not helped the freshwater crayfish, which likes very clear, oxygenated streams. These miniature lobsters have been favourite eating for a long time. Hannah Glasse gives recipes for crayfish soup, one demanding fifty, and the other two hundred: ‘save out about 20, then pick the rest from the shells’. But there are less extravagant and more delectable ways of cooking them, for those who are lucky enough to live in chalk and limestone parts of the country where they can indulge in crayfishing parties at night. (The best bait is not-too-fresh meat; a sheep’s head is the thing, or some bits of meat concealed in the centre of a faggot of sticks: the crayfish cling to the head, or crawl right into the sticks, and can then be drawn out of the water in quantity – this is the theory.)
The most famous of