Fish-How fresh is it really

When I first saw this picture I was super excited to share the recipe with you. Then it dawned on me that there was a more rich compelling story attached to the image. I’ve heard from a lot of folks over the years that you shouldn’t eat seafood, especially fish, on a Sunday. Heck, even my chef colleagues swore by this rule. Truth be told a “fresh” piece of tuna that was served last night at any random sushi bar might have been caught as much as 15 days ago in the Philippines. Seriously! It’s the well kept secret that the seafood industry doesn’t want you to know.

What the fishermen do at sea is cut the head off, remove the entrails  and blast freeze it. Blast freezing doesn’t ruin the flesh and allows for preservation. The point is that if the fish is properly kept at a certain temperature then it will last up to 15 days.

Good, fresh fish is cut on a Monday AND on a Saturday dispelling the myth about when not to eat it. However, there is always one sure fire way to know if a fillet of fish is fresh… smell it! The nose always knows.

Oh and you might be curious as to what’s in the picture above. At one of our recent HOG events we had some fine yellow tail tuna and the group made a nice dish consisting of seared tuna, smoked gypsy peppers, toasted pistachios, sea salt and saffron jus.  Yuuuum! I love the canvas of food!

happy eats..

Chef, Hands On Gourmet

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under Food Experiences, Tips and Advice . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.