Fish!

[dasein668]

In my opinion, the best things to eat while cruising are seafood products. It just seems to go perfectly with being on the water. Synchronicity or something.

Here are a couple of favs:

Wasabi tuna; Get a nice fresh tuna steak and marinate it in ginger, soy sauce, and a splash of sesame oil for an hour or so. Then slice into the steak from the side, creating a pocket. Stuff the fish with a paste of scallions, fresh grated ginger, and wasabi paste. Sprinkle the outside with sesame seeds and head for the grill. I cooked this one for my local fishmonger (www.harborfish.com) and now he serves it all the time!

Poached whitefish w/tomatos and capers; This is a pan-based dish, so its best on boats with a stove... Easy, too. Coursely chop tomatos, sweet onions, garlic, and capers. Mix with some olive oil and a little water or chicken stock to make a nice loose salsa. Take your whitefish (I prefer haddock, but would also be great with cod or halibut.) and give it a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Heat a pat of butter in the pan over medium heat. When foamy, toss the fish in the pan and cook for a minute or two, then flip. Add the salsa to the pan and cover. Cook till done.

And a perennial favorite on my boat, Freshly Harvested Mussells; We are lucky here in Maine to usually be able to harvest our own fresh mussells from wherever we happen to be anchored. A real treat. I like to prepare them in the classic French method. Scrub the mussells and remove the beards. Toss in a hot pan or pot with: fresh garlic, butter, shallots or sweet onions, chopped tomatos if you have them handy, and a few glugs of white wine or vermouth. Cook, covered, till the shells open, usually 10 minutes or so. Season with whatever fresh herbs you have at hand. I prefer parsley or basil. Serve with crusty bread to sop up the sauce.

Anyone else have any favorite fish dishes?

[Tim]

Fresh fish on board is a great treat on those days when you are in a port where you can buy it fresh and eat it the same day. Obviously, this isn't something you buy in advance and save in the cooler for a few days. (Yuck).

Heidi and I enjoyed Nathan's Haddock receipe above last summer when we were cruising together. Fortunately, I had a jar of capers on board--I recommend keeping a small jar at all times. They don't need to be refrigerated and add a certain something to a lot of dishes. We enjoyed the haddock along with some great tenderloin that I bought at the store on the same day--a little surf and turf. The food was all so good that no one spoke during the entire meal, which was wolfed down in record time.

Haddock and whitefish work really well in anyt variation of this Mediterranean-type preparation. Tomatoes, olives, garlic, onions, scallions, etc. I find that adding a couple mashed anchovy fillets really sparks this up--you aren't aware of the anchovy, but it adds an indefinable richness and heartiness to the sauce. Try it. (I think anchovies are gross too, but if you use them right you don't know they're there.)

Fresh mussels harvested from the shore in some areas are as good as it gets, especially if you get the smaller ones (shells about 2" or so). Preparation could be as simple as steaming in some salt water on the beach, but any variation of the basic butter-oil-wine-seasonings method wil be delicious. They only take about 3 minutes to cook.

If you want a slightly more involved mussel recipie, I highly recommend this one, courtesy of the Great Eastern Mussel Farms website. http://www.eatmussels.com My own choice is to forget about the pasta and just serve good bread alongside, but this would be good as presented too. As with all receipes, note that the quantities below don't need measuring; guesstimation is always fine.

INGREDIENTS:
l 1/3 lbs. fresh angel-hair pasta
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup onion, minced
2 medium jalape?no peppers, de-seeded and finely chopped (use seeds if you're adventurous)
2 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves
l cup Chardonnay
2 lbs. mussels
1/2 cup heavy cream
l cup jack or Swiss cheese, grated and tossed in a bag with l Tbsp. flour to coat
Optional: Garnish with fresh oregano (chopped) and Parmesan cheese


INSTRUCTIONS:
Cook angel hair pasta. Drain, then toss with olive oil. Put pasta in large serving dish and keep warm. In large pot, saute garlic, onions, jalape?nos, and rosemary with the butter for one minute. Add wine and mussels. Turn heat to high and steam for 3 minutes until shells open. Remove mussels with slotted spoon and arrange in shells over pasta. Keep warm. To the broth in the pot, add cheese and cream, then simmer until sauce starts to thicken, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and pour over mussels and pasta. Garnish, then serve with crusty French bread and salad.


Mmm...I'm hungry already.

Tim

[Tim]

For good steak fish (swordfish, tuna, halibut, etc), simple preparation is best. I like the firm white steaks marinated in citrus (lime first, but any would work fine), olive oil, garlic, and maybe some dill or other herbs. Marinate for a little while and grill till done. This is hard to beat with a great piece of fish.

Don't overcook.

Tim

[Figment]

I've got a pair of shark steaks that are getting the citrus-grill treatment tonight. It's going to be a looooong day at work.

Unless the weather requires me to pay more attention to the boat, I generally troll an old mackerel lure while sailing. Over the course of a 6hour sailing day, I usually get a hit or maybe two and at least half of the time it's something edible. bluefish, striper, etc...
A few members of my boatclub do the same, but I've always wondered why I don't see others.

[dasein668]

The citrus marinade is great! I like to use citrus w/cilantro, fresh chili, and a bit of Tequila. Mmmmmmm. So good.

I've never tried fishing from the boat. Do you just toss a line off the stern, or do you use a rod?

[Tim]

Well, even when I used to go out specifically to look for stripers I could never seem to find any, so I doubt I would have any luck fishing off the stern while sailing! ;<)

And I don't like Mackerel or Bluefish, so...

All the more reason to sail south. There at least you might catch one of many species of Tuna, or a Dolphin fish, or something good.

Someday...

Tim

[Figment]

The rod should be 5 or 6' long, not too whippy (trolling rod, as opposed to a casting rod because you'll need to muscle the fish around the backstay), and be the kind that comes in 2 sections so storage isn't such a hassle. gung-ho fishing types will laugh at it, but it's really the most appropriate thing for use on a sailboat. Fish it from a rod holder clamped to the stern rail.

Because you're not always able to jump right on it at a strike, set the drag lightly. Because you're not going to slow or alter the boat's course to fight the fish, load the reel with heavy line.
Also, use REALLY cheap lures and swivels, because you're going to be cutting them free a lot when you "catch" the occasional lobstertrap line.

And always bear in mind that you're not really doing it to catch fish. You're doing it because it's one more silly thing to play with.
This fools the semi-psychic fish.

Two or three years ago, "Biggest Fish" of the yacht club bluefish tournament weekend was caught on a Tartan 30 who was just cruising back from somewhere, but was eligible because had paid the $20 entry fee simply because it fulfilled part of his "club event" membership requirement.

[Figment]

On my knockabout daysail yesterday, I was a friggin bluefish MAGNET!

I came across FOUR large schools in the middle of a looong feed. I'm used to seeing the water erupt in a boil for maybe 30 seconds before things settle down, but these boys were working overtime! feeding for several minutes at a time!

why was I such a fish magnet? I'll tell you.

BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE A FRIGGIN ROD ON THE BOAT!!!

I did have a good laugh, sailing 5 yards from the school all by my lonesome, looking around at the clumps of sportfish boats a few miles in each direction, not catching anything. :)

[Commanderpete]

Glorious day of fishing yesterday off my Pearson Commander. Slayed a bunch of fluke and a few bluefish. Even non-fish eaters seem to like this recipe.

Sprinkle the fillets with salt and pepper.
Dredge in flour.
Saute in butter
Brown one side and flip over to finish cooking
Remove from pan and keep warm

Add white wine to pan and boil it mostly away
Good squeeze of lemon
Chopped parsley
Pour over fish

Thats it. Trickiest part is flipping the fish over. Helps to have large frying pans and spatulas.

For variations I might throw other stuff in the pan sometime during the process:

garlic
scallions
chop tomato
little heavy cream