Travel: Seafood of the Sicilian seas

The view whilst eating dinner in Sant'Ambrogio, Sicily, Italy

Travelling to picturesque islands in the Mediterranean sea for some may simply mean absorbing the sun, sea and local atmosphere. However, my favourite of the holiday rituals is sampling the local cuisine. Sicily has many local products on offer from gelato, Aperol spritzes and limoncello to pasta and a delightful array of seafood.

In a little village on the hilltops of Northern Sicily, we were welcomed to the restaurant in Sant'Ambrogio by the most beautiful, breathtaking view overlooking the sea (see photo above). It was obvious from that point on that as we were right on the coast, the fish and seafood available were bound to be fresh and delicious. 

Mussel spaghetti

 We went for three different seafood dishes; mussel spaghetti, 'la regina del mare' (meaning 'queen of the sea') with potatoes, and capone (gurnard) with potatoes. The Italians really do do seafood pasta well! The huge bowl of mussels with a splattering of spaghetti were incredibly flavoursome as well as being a seafood with a high level of sustainability. This is definitely a dish I will attempt to recreate at home. 

"Queen of the Sea" with potatoes

Capone (gurnard) with potatoes

 We could also all recreate both of the whole fish dishes, gurnard is widely available in the UK and is a fish with a high sustainability rating. 'Queen of the Sea' is in fact a fish called amber jack, which so far does not have a rating on the MCS good fish guide. Both of the fish tasted delicious and are definitely worth a try. Eating of any of these three seafood species would mean branching away from the 5 most eaten seafoods in the UK (cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns) and could help alleviate the pressure on these species' fish stocks.

Activity: Rock-Pooling

The truth is that people only want to conserve and protect the things they love. A great way to get people to love the ocean is getting them to interact with it, and going rock-pooling is an easy way to get close to nature.

I went down to Cuckmere Haven this week to check out what it has to offer. One of the most exciting things with nature is that you never know what you are going to find, some days you will see hundreds of animals and the next day virtually nothing. Our day was one of the latter! But, it was still a fun day out and great just being by the sea!

Cuckmere Haven, situated in the Seven Sisters Country park, a great place for a summers walk

Some limpets stuck to one of the rocks

Although live crabs eluded us we saw plenty of evidence of them

An image of a typical rock pool

A Sea Anemone, we saw loads of these in all the rock pools!

We managed to catch a tiny shrimp. make sure you bring a net with you so you can catch these little critters! (obviously return them safely to the water afterwards)

 So, although we didn't see a lot we had a great day out. Such a good activity to do while there is still a bit of the summer left!! Top tip: Check the tide times before going, you want it to be low tide so there are lots of rock pools to visit.

Other things you could expect to see include crabs, Starfish and little juvenile fish.

 Comment and add pictures below if you go rock-pooling and find anything interesting! If you don't know what it is we will try our best to tell you the species and a bit about its life.

Recipe: Mackerel Ceviche

Ceviche is a classic central and south american dish usually comprising of white fish cooked by the acidity of citrus fruit. It is delightfully fresh and clean and is one of my favourite ways to eat fish. Here I am using mackerel, which is a bit out of the ordinary, but I think the deliciously oily component of this fish adds to the taste of the ceviche.

Mackerel is an excellent source of omega-3 and reasonably inexpensive compared to other fish. It is rated between 2 and 4 on the MCS good fish guide, with fish caught in the UK or EU being classed as good to eat and only that from the Faroe Islands and Iceland as unsustainable. So check where your mackerel is from before buying.

Ingredients (serves 2-3): 

2 Mackerel fillets (preferably de-boned and de-skinned)
4 Limes
1 Chilli (depending on how hot you like it)
1/2 a Cucumber
A small piece of Ginger
A handful of Mint
A handful of Coriander

Methods:

1) Chop the mackerel into roughly 5cm chunks and put in a bowl with the juice from the limes and finely chopped deseeded cucumber
2) leave that mixture for the fish to cook (it should turn opaque in roughly 5 minutes)
3) chop the chilli and herbs and grate the ginger and add to the fish mixture
4) Its ready to eat! We served ours with corn chips.

adapted from recipe: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/10302221/Ceviche-of-line-caught-Cornish-mackerel-recipe.html

Recipe: Sustainable Crab Cakes

These have to be the most delicious crab cakes I have eaten! Crab is rated 2-3 on the MCS good fish guide, so from 'good to eat' to 'eat occasionally', depending on where and how it is fished. When buying yours just check it is responsibly sourced. Crab meat is also a great addition to any diet. It is low in saturated fat and really high in vitamin B12 which helps your body produce healthy red blood cells and supports normal brain function.

Time: 15 minutes preparation, 2 hours chilling, 5/6 minutes frying

Ingredients (serves 2):

- 200g of Crab meat (half white and half brown)
- 200g of potato (peeled and chopped)
- 3 spring onions
- 1/4 of a red chilli (more if you like it hot)
- 1 lemon
- A few sprigs of flat leaf parsley
- Salt and pepper to season

Our beautiful fresh ingredients

Methods: 

1) Boil the potato till soft, drain the water and mash with the crab meat and season
2) Zest the lemon and chop the chilli, parsley and spring onion very finely (could use a food processor to get it extra smooth)
3) Mash the chilli mixture into the crab mix
4) Separate the mix into 4/5 portions and shape into 'cakes'
5) Chill the cakes for around 2 hours for the mixture to firm up (this stops them falling apart in the pan)
6) Fry in olive oil for 2/3 minutes on each side until brown and crispy
7) Enjoy! We paired ours with a baby leaf spinach salad dressed in lemon and extra virgin olive oil.

Crab cakes ready for chilling

The finished product

Adapted from a recipe fond at: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/seafood-recipes/beautiful-homemade-crab-cakes-with-a-hot-blackened-salsa/#3G43wz2mPjJOSlHQ.97

Seafood abroad: The Rialto Market, Venice

The location of the Venice (Google Maps)

The Rialto market in Venice is bustling with life, and the fish market is no exception. Fresh fish lines the stalls with the smells and colours of the sea. Such interesting varieties of seafood on offer for locals to buy at reasonable prices.

                           

                           

                           

                           

A Venetian speciality is cuttlefish ink spaghetti (see photo below), this delicious dish is local and sustainable in Italy. Cuttlefish are a mollusc similar to squid or octopus and can be cooked in similar ways. They are abundant in UK waters especially of the South west coast. MCS rates them as 3 for sustainability, so it is ok to eat occasionally, but many of the cuttlefish fisheries are still unassessed, so have no rating yet (see post on the MCS Good Fish Guide). 

Venetian speciality: Cuttlefish ink spaghetti

                       

When Anyfin is Possible visited Brixham fish market in January, we saw crates and crates full of cuttlefish caught off the south coast that were being exported to Italy and Spain as there was no market for them in the UK. If we could start eating these molluscs then there would be no need to export them, cutting down on the carbon used for export, and providing us with a cheap and delicious seafood. For instance, looking back at our visit to Brixham Fish Market in January; Barry Young (Chief Auctioneer) showed us the huge amount of cuttlefish being brought to the market by fishermen every day and noted the huge proportion of it sent to other European countries, for instance, Spain and Italy.

Exhibition watch: Coral Reefs, Natural History Museum

Exhibition name: Coral Reefs - Secret Cities of the Sea 
Where: Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London
Open: 27th March-15th September 2015
Visited: 28th July 2015
Paid: £10 (£4.50 for concessions)

When I saw that a coral reefs exhibition had opened this year at the Natural History Museum in London, I knew it needed to be paid a visit! The Natural History Museum is somewhere I certainly remember loving to visit as a little, hyper and overexcited child, enthralled by the dinosaurs. The museum is wonderful as it is free to enter the main building (donations accepted) and then you can choose to pay a fee if you wish to visit special exhibitions like that of Coral Reefs.

Lots of samples of coral and sea creatures

I was immensely pleased with what the exhibition had to offer. It catered for both the old-fashioned exhibition-goers and also those who love interactive and visual learning. A vast amount of the information on show was similar to what we had learnt in our marine biology lectures during our biology degree. This shows how much you can learn from visiting an exhibition like this. 

My favourite part of the exhibition was the brightly-coloured fish tank full of a plethora of coral and fish species (see photo below). It was beautiful, even with the 'reef' being housed in an electronically lit up tank in the middle of London! Next to the tank, it was great to see a sign stating that all creatures seen were 'sourced sustainably, confiscated by UK customs or from coral research tanks at the Horniman Museum and Gardens'. This shows that they are taking care to look after the environment as well as educating the public about the problems facing coral reefs.

The exhibition's beautiful coral reef tank

The exhibition spoke about how many coral reefs are experiencing a change from mainly coral species to algae and seaweed. In our lectures we heard about this being named 'the slippery slope to slime'. This can be seen as an indirect effect of overfishing, as if the abundances of certain fish species reduce, the amount of grazing of algae on coral reefs will also decline dramatically. This means that algae can become more and more abundant and begin to smother corals.

This is something that many people will not think about when they hear about a rise in the prevalence of overfishing. But, this 'slippery slope to slime' is a reason that we must be careful how we fish, how much we fish and where we fish in order to prevent the imminent decline of beautiful underwater coral 'cities' across the world's oceans.

Overall, I definitely believe this exhibition is worth a visit. The only drawback is that it is quite a short but sweet exhibition. I however do not think that this is a problem as there are copious other parts of the Natural History Museum to explore once you have finished learning about coral!

Our health and fish sustainability CAN go hand in hand

For years we have heard the benefits of consuming omega-3 found in oily fish. In junior school I remember the craze for parents to give their children Eye Q fish oil capsules to perhaps 'improve their brain and eye health'. In our previous post we discussed a channel 4 TV programme that revealed fish rich in omega-3 are in fact a superfood.

Anyfin is Possible has researched a number of seafood species and graded them across various categories to see whether their sustainability and health-related ratings deem them good to eat. This included studying their sustainability ratings according to the MCS's Good Fish Guide (see explanatory post) and calculating a rough omega-3 value for each species*. We found the omega-3 information very interesting, as some of the seafood we would not usually think of as particularly healthy, actually were. 

* We used the http://nutritiondata.self.com/ website to calculate values for omega-3. 

Mussels (http://shop.lochfyne.com/files/images/1872_large.jpg)

For instance, mussels came up high in the rankings for both categories. Firstly, they have an MCS sustainability rating of 1 due to the fact that they can be farmed easily with no food input and also aid the marine environment by filtering sea water. Secondly, they also have a high value for omega-3 of 483 (mg/100g), compared to that of cod with 195 (mg/100g). This suggests that it is preferable to tuck into 'moules frites' whilst holidaying in France rather than traditional cod and chips in the UK.

New product on the market:

The sustainable omega-3 herring caviar by Tom Oliver Nutrition

“Bringing sustainable and all natural products to our customers is what we do at Whole Foods Market. Tom Oliver Nutrition’s ‘Omega 3 MOPL Herring Caviar’ is the UK’s first environmentally friendly phospholipid Omega 3 supplement and we are happy to support it in our stores.” - Andrew Ragatz, Health & Beauty Associate Coordinator, Whole Foods Market UK.

Tom Oliver Nutrition has grabbed our attention through the launch of an intriguing product in Whole Foods Market stores across the UK. They have released omega-3 MOPL herring caviar, which may sound incredibly fancy but it is simply made from the roe of Norwegian herring. 

The window display at the High Street Kensington Whole Foods Market

Usually, omega-3 fish oils are derived from krill but there can be serious sustainability issues surrounding the use of it. Therefore, using herring instead could prove highly beneficial, as it would take the strain off depleting krill populations. We were very pleased to see that the sustainable herring roe is sourced from an MSC certified fishery and is friends of the sea certified. This product is not only sustainable, but it is great for our health too! The herring caviar is said to benefit heart function, brain health, eye health and fat metabolism. Must be worth a try....