Fish

[Jinmyo]

I love fish and I have to say that as long as its fresh and well-prepared, I like everything. For sushi, I tend to go for toro (fatty tuna) or saba (mackerel).

←

Saba is tremendously underappreciated.

[Susan in FL]

Freshly caught Chesapeake Bay Rock.

[Susan in FL]

Also sea bass, pompano, mahi and halibut when it comes to buying fish from the market. As for catching and eating, add to the rock: trout, flounder, and blowfish from the Delaware bay. We haven't done much fishing in FL, and after we do, I imagine I will add to the freshly caught list.

And anchovies.

[johnnyd]

I love fish and I have to say that as long as its fresh and well-prepared, I like everything. For sushi, I tend to go for toro (fatty tuna) or saba (mackerel).

←

Saba is tremendously underappreciated.

←

...word.

There are so many mackeral here in the summertime I keep meaning to try my hand at curing a few in salt and Rice Vinegar, like the local sushi chefs.

When I lived in Portugal as a kid, my mom and I would hit the beach early enough to score a big bag of fresh sardines from the fishermen. Grilled for breakfast and served in a tomato/onion/parsley vinagrette with fresh papo seco (breadlings), eaten bones-and-all with a spritz of lemon off the tree have to be on the top of a list too long to type out.

...but since you asked:

Halibut - poached in mirin, lemon and fennel

Red Snapper - baked in soy/ginger/scallion

I would eat sushi every day if I could afford it!

[irodguy]

Yep I would eat Sushi daily if i could afford it as well. In fact there have been weeks that I wound up eating sushi everyday for an entire week. It was great!

[petite tête de chou]

I really love salmon.

Salmon shioyaki.

Gravlax, heavy on the fresh dill.

Crab-stuffed salmon.

Rainbow trout stuffed with salmon.

Cedar planked salmon.

God, I love this pink fish.

[DRColby]

We are going through two weeks avoidance of society and bad mainland weather, passing the days on Moloaki (it's GREAT!).

Anyhow, two days ago my wife caught a mahi-mai; I would conclude my favorite is any fresh fish; it makes all the difference between good and bad. Don't matter: salmon, albacore, sturgeon, trout....

..We eat lots and lots of fish. Just before leaving for here we had some North Sea mackrel for the first time at Union in Seattle. I would say that chef Ethen Stowell's standards are like mine: Fresh is best.

dave

[bigbear]

Swordfish.

[lorilei1170]

Tuna! Raw preferably!

Whole yellowtail snapper, fried

Grouper any which way, grilled is nice

Not too many fish I don't like... depends on preparation i guess.

[APPS411]

Grouper, Grouper, Grouper!!!!!

Grilled in a sandwich, pan seared w/ salt and pepper, broiled. Whatever just bring it. Just don't dare fry mine. Breaks my heart. I'm actually surprised to see the lack of grouper votes above.

It's nice to see all the votes for smelts. Didn't have any over this past holiday and missed them greatly. Small ones floured and fried w/ a squeez of lemon and some vinegar for dipping is my favorite way.

Albacore (white) tuna sashimi or tataki. Melts in your mouth

[CtznCane]

I can't think of any fish I don't like. I do however (outside of sushi which I love) have a few solid favorites and favorite methods. My all time favorites fish meals.

1. Fresh water channell catfish (years ago at my uncles in Huntland, Tenn.) Breaded in corn meal fresh from the local mill, cooked outside in a cast iron skillet in oil over an open flame. Just magnificent.

2. Cod baked in a salt coat. I had this at Ameilio's when Jacky Robert was the owner/head chef. Absolutely melt in your mouth delicious.

3. Poached Salmon with a mustard dill suace. This is one I do, poaching the salmon and then a simple sauce of butter/cream/stone ground mustard/ & fresh dill.

4. Northern Pike beer battered and fried. This was Northern my in-laws use to catch up on Cree Lake, 30 miles south of the Northwest Territories in the perma frost. It's hard to match any fish coming from such pristine waters.

Other favorite fishes are Sturgeon, Thresher Shark, and Dover sole just to name the 3 other most prominent fish I like to eat.

[Willobie]

Mississippi Perch. I recently moved to a town on the Mississippi in Illinois and found is a nice, no nonsense fish store in the area that has fresh perch early in the week, which they ship to Chicago. They also smoke their own carp, sturgeon, and paddlefish (spoonbill). Their stock-in-trade seems to be carp and catfish and neither are favoites of mine. The smoked sturgeon and paddlefish are fatty and wonderful! I love the feel of Omega-3 oils running down my chin.

I finally got there on a day when they had perch and asked for two pounds of filets. I could see them being fileted through a window on the processing room door and they looked much larger than the perch I knew from Canadian lakes or New England perch runs. I didn't see the fish close up. The filets weighed a half pound each, and I ended up taking all that the fishmonger fileted which was over 3 lbs. of fish consisting of 6 filets. They were $1.25/lb dressed and $2.25/lb fileted. Incredibly cheap compared to supermarket fish.

The fish were white, firm, and mild with thick muscle layers. The filets were boneless. I did them lightly dipped in flour and corn meal, then sauteed them in butter and bacon fat, and deglazed the pan with white wine. Delicious.

Who knows Mississippi fish? Were these indeed perch? Could they have been yellow perch?

[Milagai]

I don't know what pomfret is called in the Western hemisphere,

but back in my meater days I loved this fish.

Tandoori pomfret - excellent!

Milagai

[scubadoo97]

I'm partial to our local fish. Groupers, many types of snapper, pompano, permit mahi, trout, snook, red fish and Spanish mackerel. I've even had barracuda which was excellent white, mild and delicious. Not been too keen on cobia, shark or king fish. Also love salmon

[Adam Balic]

I don't know what pomfret is called in the Western hemisphere,

but back in my meater days I loved this fish.

Tandoori pomfret - excellent!

Milagai

←

They are called 'Pomfret' when you can get them. These are Silver pomfret Pampus argenteus.

[offcentre]

I'm lovin red mullet at the moment but for value for money - and ease of catching - its hard to beat mackeral.

[miladyinsanity]

I'll eat fish anyway I can get it except sushi.

I believe there are no better ways to cook fish except steaming or poaching.

Pomfret's really good, so's grilled saba, threadfin, snakehead in porridge... The list goes on.

[Philanthrophobe]

Blowfish!!! We used to catch it in the 60s/70s off the mid-Atlantic coast. Lightly breaded and fried. (I still remember how to clean them.) And yes, it's related to fugu.

[Oyster Guy]

Pickerel (Walleye) freshly caught and filleted, fried in butter.

The cheeks on a big enough one are better than scallops!

mmmmmm.........pickerel..........gurgle

Keep on shucking

Oyster Guy

[jsolomon]

Catfish, trout, and halibut.

MMM-mmm good.

[Pan]

One of the best fish I ever tasted, at least as I remember from the time when I was about 11 years old, was a Malaysian fish locally called ayam laut (chicken of the sea, and no, it was NOT a brand of canned tuna!). It was seldom available on the coast of Terengganu in those days (mid 70s), and was considered a delicacy. It did indeed have a somewhat chickeny taste.

I also liked ikan keli very much. Those are small catfish native to the streams of coastal Terengganu, and they had a very different taste from the much larger catfish native to the Mississippi Delta (which I also like).

The best fish I had in a restaurant during my last trip to Malaysia, and a memorable one at that, turned out to be a marble goby. You can find a discussion of the fish and the dish on page 3 of the "Eateries in Malaysia" thread, and you can find a link to a photo of that fish in this post by SG-.

[eipi10]

Salmon, like tuna, is wonderful for the versatility. While it doesn't seem like the best fish, I surely eat it more than any other fish (I'm a fan of bagels with lox). It's also underrated raw...I love the butteriness.

Toro is probably my favorite sushi. Yellowtail and mackerel are other favorites.

Catfish is my choice for cooked fish because it holds up so well in flavorful dishes and because I grew up eating catfish I caught on our pond. A fiery basil catfish is probably my favorite Thai dish.

And for sandwiches, I love them with olive oily shredded cod and tapenade.