Smoked Fish

[Gruney]

We had some great Cullen Skink on holiday recently, and I'd really like to keep the mood going. I need a bit of help, please. I've found one or two recipes, all of which implore you to insist on undied haddock. Our supermarket frequently has the dyed fish, rarely the undied. How different are they, and what difference would it make to the final dish - or is it just a nod to tradition?

[Stokey Sue]

This is one of those instructions that rather annoys me - undyed smoked haddock is sometimes better quality than the yellow stuff and to my mind, looks better in the finished dish.

However, I think the insistence on "undyed" is mainly food snobbery, and if you use the yellow stuff the result will be fine, the colour is from turmeric and sometimes paprika, nothing scary, it has been used for years because undyed can be an unappealing grey, depending on the wood used to smoke it. I think less safe dyes may have been used in the past.

Having said which, I think dying it may be err, dying a death (soz), the last 2 times I've bought smoked haddock it has been undyed and it has come frozen from Iceland or rtc from Morrisons, I haven't had to seek it out.

[Gruney]

Thanks a lot, Sue - that answers all my questions perfectly.

[Pepper Pig]

Yes, I agree with Sue. On the fish counter at Waitrose they only do undyed round here. Mind you it’s in a posh area.

I love smoked haddock and particularly kedgeree.

[Seatallan]

Ooooh, me too PP!

[Suffs]

I also agree with SSue … once upon a time all we in the south could get was the bright yellow smoked haddock. Sometimes cod would be smoked and dyed if haddock wasn’t available.
Ma would use whatever the weekly visiting fishvan had to make Cullen skink, kedgeree or whatever.
Now the undyed smoked haddock is more widely available so that’s what we use.
Either will be fine.

[mistakened]

I just want some smoked haddock, dyed or undyed.
My Mother used to buy "golden fillet" I think that it was smoked cod

Moira

[Gruney]

You see - you only have to ask. Thanks again all.

[Suffs]

[Suffs]

Just a thought … I tried some smoked basa recently instead of haddock. Disappointing… texture totally wrong … it didn’t ‘flake’ as haddock (or cod) does … just lay in the sauce and was a bit chewy. Don’t waste your money on it.

[Pepper Pig]

Smoked eel on the other hand . . .

[Suffs]

Smoked eel on the other hand . . .

[miss mouse]

Smoked eel on the other hand . . . lick lips lick lips

Haven't they been over-fished? There's a surprise to us all.

I quite like the yellow smoked haddock just because it is yellow, I concur with previous views re 'food snobbery'. I suppose if I really care that much about it I could just smear turmeric on it if un-dyed is all that's available, that's a handy idea.

[Badger's Mate]

When I was a student, some time in the late Cretaceous, we were told about a synthetic food dye called ‘Brown FK’. The FK being ’for kippers’.

[PatsyMFagan]

Smoked eel on the other hand . . .

Or an arbroath smokie...

[Stokey Sue]

I think they may have used tartrazine at some poinrt which I would not fancy but wouldn’t be used now, though probably annatto (which is fine, used to make pastry yellow for pasties) before that

Love smoked eel, there is allegedly sustainable eel now

[Badger's Mate]

I love eel - smoked, stewed or jellied. Our local Japanese restaurant serves it in various ways and (before I lived here) there was a Chinese restaurant down the road that offered eel in black bean sauce. As with rock eel (not an eel in case anyone else wants to tell me ) I eat far less nowadays than I used to, now it’s an occasional treat.

Whether it’s sustainable depends upon the definition of sustainable. Some catchments are in a good condition in terms of pollution and obstructions. Around here there’s a lot of work being done on eel-friendly engineering projects as sluices and the like are replaced, but the water isn’t perfect. Fundamentally we can’t breed eels; they don’t become fertile until they reach the Sargasso Sea (wherever that is), but natural mortality is so high (apparently several million returning baby eels returning for every surviving adult fish) that catching and growing on the babies is a feasible way of producing large numbers of adults with lower effects on the wild population.

https://www.sustainableeelgroup.org/seg ... ustainable.

[Stokey Sue]

Can't read that - I don't know if it has been done in practice but I think the Dutch were talking about catching a small proportion elvers before the herons and cormorants grab them and fattening them up, which might make sense

[Suffs]

But then what are the herons and cormorants meant to eat? I’d be more concerned about the possibility of them being vacuumed up by the vast factory ships and turned into fertiliser and protein feed for factory farming along with billions of other small fry.

[Stokey Sue]

I think they only skim off a few leaving enough for the natural predators Suffs, that's why it's considered sustainable and they would be catching them in estuaries and upstream, after they have dodged the factory ships