68 replies to this topic

[BonVivantNL]

N.European flat fish, plus ray/skate.
and also N.E. fatty fish including the lowly herrings and sprats.

i'm grateful to be able to eat any or all of this every week!

[rotuts]

Very Very fresh Salmon, (wild) filet, cut just behind the head. 'Pan-roast' with Penzies Chicago Steak seasoning, starting skin side down in a hot, heavy pan. After turing over, finished in a 350 oven until still rare in the middle.

[Beebs]

Wild Pacific spring (chinook/king) salmon. It's so rich and oily and delicious. Especially the toro, the stomach part.

Mackerel is a very, very close second.

Most fun fish to eat is whitebait prepared Chinese-style - battered, deep fried, with hot chilies and garlic.

[Katie Meadow]

The definition of a favorite fish for me is not only how it tastes, but must include low toxins and sustainably fished. Being on the west coast I would agree with David Ross that the best all-around fish these days is wild Alaskan Sablefish (black cod, butterfish.) I eat black cod about once a week, and it's super versatile and yummy. Ten years ago I would have said wild Pacific King Salmon. But now it's available sporadically and is very pricey. I still love it, and consider it a treat.

I also really like fresh wild Pacific sardines, but gutting and boning them isn't a favorite activity, so I have to buy them somewhere they are willing to do that for me. They are not terribly available; I suppose demand is low. The price is right, though. They are dynamite cooked on the grill.

Yellowfin Tuna (Ahi) is also a favorite of mine, but it takes finesse to cook it just right, and it isn't cheap, and it isn't easy to determine how it is fished.

When I'm on the east coast I admit to a weakness for bluefish, if I can every find it, but it has been so long since I lived in NY that I look at most of the fish sold when I visit and just get confused. When back east I tend to eat the shellfish of my childhood, which isn't available in CA.

[Prawncrackers]

Mackerel, just cured sashimi style. So cheap and so delicious, tastiest fish per £ no doubt in my mind.

[weinoo]

The definition of a favorite fish for me is not only how it tastes, but must include low toxins and sustainably fished. Being on the west coast I would agree with David Ross that the best all-around fish these days is wild Alaskan Sablefish (black cod, butterfish.) I eat black cod about once a week, and it's super versatile and yummy.

Been a few people who like the Sablefish. I love the stuff, but rarely see it fresh back here in NYC. It's a classic when it's smoked, though.

These days, at Russ & Daughters, smoked sable is about the same price as smoked sturgeon. They tell me it is much harder to source and much more expensive. My guess is that's been the case ever since it became a hit at Nobu (who can forget the much ballyhooed miso marinated black cod?), and then appeared on practically every other menu in town.

[scubadoo97]

It is considered a trash fish, but I love amberjack. Great taste and texture that stands up to any cooking method.

Trash fish? gulp

I'm on the Florida west coast and for me there is no best fish. Fresh fish is quite available. My job is to not screw it up. Here are some amberjack fillets I cut a few weeks ago. I like it a tad pink in the middle for best texture. Currently amberjack is a favorite since it is plentiful, fresh and down right tasty.

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[Mallet]

Cod. It's the pork of the fish world.

[msiferllc]

Have to go with Salmon on this one (I am a pacific northwest guy.) Close runner-up, Swordfish.

[Paul Bacino]

Being from the Mid-west!!

Walleye
Spring Crappie and Blue Gill-- from cold water ( killer )

I like wild caught salmons.. preferably from deep water.

Halibut ( Sorry )

When I can get--Rainbow/Brownies YUMMMMM

[Beebs]

Mackerel, just cured sashimi style. So cheap and so delicious, tastiest fish per £ no doubt in my mind.

What's your recipe for curing this? Looks delicious.

[Norm Matthews]

I visited my son in Seattle a few years ago and tried several fish dishes when I was there. The one I enjoyed the most was mahi mahi served outdoors on the pier.

Although much maligned and misunderstood, fresh water catfish can be delicious if properly prepared.

[kayb]

So many fishes -- so little time.

As previously noted, much depends on where you are, and when. If I'm in Tokyo (not nearly often enough, I might add), it's ahi tuna sashimi at 6 a.m. at the Tsukiji market. If I'm on the U.S. Gulf Coast, it's grouper or corvina.

But if I'm at home, in the Mid-South (Tennessee-Arkansas-Mississippi), and within shouting distance of a farm pond or a flatland lake, there's no contest. It's bream, caught that morning, dressed, dusted in cornmeal with salt and pepper, and panfried. There is nothing better.

[Fat Guy]

If you're eating "local" wild striped bass in NYC at this time of the year, here's a tip: either it's not wild, or it's not local, as the NY State season runs from July to December.

The chef I spoke to said that the striped bass season for most of the fishery opens on April 15 but that there are some coming in from up north on the Hudson where the fishery opened a week or so ago. That may very well be wrong.

[nibor]

Smoked whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from Lake Superior or northern Lake Michigan.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Ecuador, South America - it's a tie between Red Bellied Piraña, Arrowana, Tilapia, and Pargo Lunar (a type of snapper local to our coast). And this will always depend on where in the country I find myself; upper Amazon is best for Piraña, lower Amazon for Arrowana, and coast for Pargo Lunar. In the Sierra, I tend to eat locally farmed rainbow and steelhead trout or, when in Ibarra, Tilapia freshly caught out of Lago Yaguarcocha.

[infernooo]

New Zealand / King Salmon sashimi style.

Fatty. Tasty. Unctuous.

http://aquaculture.o...umb-465x330.jpg


If I feel like explosive toilet action, sashimi butterfish/escolar:

http://www.osakasush...lar Sashimi.JPG

For mercury poisoning, it has to be swordfish belly sashimi:

http://www.foodex.hk...14161216002.jpg

Edited by infernooo, 23 March 2012 - 09:12 PM.

[Ashen]

fresh halibut cheeks , flour dusted and pan fried.

[weinoo]

If you're eating "local" wild striped bass in NYC at this time of the year, here's a tip: either it's not wild, or it's not local, as the NY State season runs from July to December.

The chef I spoke to said that the striped bass season for most of the fishery opens on April 15 but that there are some coming in from up north on the Hudson where the fishery opened a week or so ago. That may very well be wrong.

Let me just say this about the striped bass fishery in NY State. Or rather, let the Dept. of Environmental Conservation say it:

New York State also has a commercial striped bass fishery. Striped bass taken commercially must be caught east of the East Rockaway Inlet on the south shore of Long Island and east of Wading River Creek on the north shore. The Hudson River and waters near New York City are closed to commercial fishing because of health concerns due to past concentrations of PCBs in those areas. In order to participate in the commercial striped bass fishery, you must possess both a striped bass commercial harvesters permit and a food fish license. At this time no new striped bass permits are being issued by DEC. Detailed rules and regulations for commercial fishing can be found in 6 NYCRR Part 40 of the fish and wildlife regulations of New York.

And here are the regs.

The commercial season runs from July 1 - December 15th.

Bottom line is restaurants should not be serving NY State wild striped bass other than from July 1st to December 15th. And if it's coming from the Hudson, don't eat it. Or at the least, don't feed it to your kids.

[Prawncrackers]

What's your recipe for curing this? Looks delicious.

hi beebs, there's almost no recipe for this it's mostly technique! Fillet your mackerel but leave the pin bones in. Sprinkle with salt and sugar, let rest for 2 hours, rinse, soak in rice vinegar with a small piece of kombu for another hour. This is for a very fresh fish, cure for longer each stage if not supremely fresh. When you're ready to slice, pin bone it and carefully peel the skin off. If you're not careful with the skin you will tear up the fillet.

Steamed turbor is also a fave. The slippery bits around the head, the skin and frilly nuggets on the fins. Engawa in sushi terms but with the added sticky gelatinous skin. I'm weary of the dark skinned wild turbot nowadays, they can taste very muddy. The consistently best fish at the market is the farmed light skinned Norweigian variety. Every scrap of the fish is so clean tasting. The real gems are the livers, truly the foie gras of the sea forget monkfish liver.

[Katie Meadow]

Been a few people who like the Sablefish. I love the stuff, but rarely see it fresh back here in NYC. It's a classic when it's smoked, though.

These days, at Russ & Daughters, smoked sable is about the same price as smoked sturgeon. They tell me it is much harder to source and much more expensive. My guess is that's been the case ever since it became a hit at Nobu (who can forget the much ballyhooed miso marinated black cod?), and then appeared on practically every other menu in town.

Probably it never even occurred to me growing up around the corner from Barney Greengrass that there was such a thing as fresh sable or fresh sturgeon or fresh whitefish. Nor can I remember eating fresh salmon, but then my parents didn't eat a lot of fish that wasn't smoked.

Rarely I have been able to get the west coast version of smoked black cod on the northern CA coast, and it is great, but a little differently done than back east. Not easy to find, though, and very expensive. The price of fresh black cod has been on the upswing in the last couple of years. Berkelely bowl used to sell it for about $12 per pound, and Tokyo Market for about the same. Recently Berkeley Bowl has been having difficulty stocking it, and last week Tokyo Market was selling it for $18 per pound, which is the most I have ever paid.

[Jaymes]

I was lucky enough to get to live in Alaska for several years, and noticed an interesting phenomenon. Alaskans eat a LOT of fish, as you might imagine, but when Alaskans got to talking about fish, almost invariably, someone would say, "You know, I probably shouldn't admit it, but I think I might like halibut better than salmon."

Amusingly enough, it was like they were afraid of being "disloyal" to the perceived Champion Favorite Fish of All Alaskans. So much so that they couldn't even outright admit to liking halibut better, and had to soften their statement with phrases like, "I think maybe I might..."

All of the "Salmon Bakes" up there also feature deep-fried pillows of snowy-white halibut. One of the most heavenly dishes on earth. Like those other Alaskans, I like halibut better. But I'm not ashamed to admit it.

We also lived in Panama, where the restaurants served many dishes made with corvina; Corvina Almondine at Las Americas was a favorite. And the corvina ceviches.

I really loved that, too.

And I've had some fabulous dishes made with grouper. I dream about a Grouper in Basil Sauce that I had once in Thailand.

How does that old saying go? So many fishes, so little time?

Edited by Jaymes, 24 March 2012 - 03:01 PM.

[haresfur]

Since I live on what basically amounts to an island (you have to cross a bridge at some point no matter which way you come into or leave from town) surrounded by lakes full of walleye that attract a large tourist business every year, I guess I'll go with that for my answer. Especially since quality fresh fish that doesn't come from the local lakes is almost impossible to get most of the time.

So do you call it walleye? When I was growing up we called waleye pickerel even though it's not a true pickerel. It is my favourite freshwater fish although that is probably in part is nostalgia.

Us antipodeans have been discussing our favourites here...

I still haven't found any flathead fish & chips or at a restaurant. Which gets me to the point that my favourite fish is primarily what is fresh and well prepared. So that generally means cooked by someone else. Halibut is very high on my list after leaving a Seattle restaurant thinking, "Why do I even bother trying to cook fish myself?"

King and sockeye salmon if not caught too far upriver are very nice. I also have some good meal-memories of European plaice.

I try to think about sustainability but it is really hard to keep track and it always seems to be shades of grey. I really try to avoid sturgeon for this reason. It's kind of creepy to eat a fish older than I am.

[andiesenji]

I can't eat fish from the ocean because of an allergy. I do have a fair amount of fresh water fish, mostly trout - a friend's brother owns a fish farm and she brings me a lot of lovely fish, much larger than the usual "farmed" fish. These are not raised for direct sale but are bred to produce fish that are restocked into streams and lakes for sport fishing.
The last I got a few days ago were steelhead but I have gotten different species but usually rainbow or steelhead.

A close second would be catfish. Being a Kentucky native, I consumed a lot of catfish when I was young and I don't think anyone ever gets over a preference for this meaty fish.

[azurite]

In the PNW:

fresh halibut, line caught tuna--grilled (so different from canned tuna), smoked tuna. Fresh sardines (cooked). I have yet to be able to get the last in OR though, at least where I live, there's a sardine fishery off of OR but apparently the local fishing boats aren't equipped to fish for sardine, so that they get (much larger then the size that eaten) it used for bait. Or that's what a former commercial fisherperson who now runs a seafood restaurant (featuring locally caught seafood) told me.

[liuzhou]

Probably the fish dish I remember most was several years back in a Mediterranean village in France, close to the Spanish border. It was the Feast of the Assumption (August 15th) and the local tradition was for the fishermen to feed the entire village, for free. They set up on the quayside and simply grilled mountains of very fresh sardines and served them with baguettes, a local wine and a peach for dessert. You could go back as often as you liked.

One of the best meals I have ever eaten.

[DanM]

Thanks to the head of a local sushi restaurant and books on fish (mainly the River Cottage Fish Book), I have to say that it is a very tricky question to answer. My "favorite" will vary based on what is freshest at the fish monger and if it is sustainable or locally caught/raised. Wild salmon is always available frozen in good quality near me. I prefer sockeye, but will take what is available. I try to vary my choices to not put strain on any one species. Spanish Mackerel, striped bass, and rainbow trout are typically available whole around here as well. Unfortunately, I have not been successful at convincing my wife to eat a fish that is looking back at her.

[Heartsurgeon]

What ever is freshest!

I've had memorable swordfish, salmon, chilean sea bass, trout, ahi tuna, even bluefish!
Probably the most memorable was chilean sea bass (pillowy, meltingly soft, unctuous), some fresh "pink" swordfish (the fish monger claimed it represented a fish that likely fed extensively upon shrimp?) incredibly juicy and flavorful. Totally fresh off the boat bluefish (in Cape Cod), just caught...simply yummy.

[Kitchen Detective]

In KS, fresh catfish from a muddy stream, with a Panko crust and panfried in olive oil. Add a mustard dill to it.

[harrysnapperorgans]

For me it would have to be freshly caught river trout from ice cold NZ rivers.

Smoked, fried, poached or baked, heaven in a mouthful.