Some seafood surprises to sustain you – and the planet

SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD IRELAND Unit 9, Willsborough Business Centre, Clonshaugh Business & Technology Park, Dublin 17, sustainableseafood.ie

LOCKDOWN certainly changes the way we shop and that, despite what many may think, extends to food. Sure, food and drink retailers are essential and open, but a lot of people are not keen to go out. An unexpected benefit of this is the possibility of eating better, using online suppliers.

We live about an hour from the nearest truly dependable fishmonger, Pat O’Connell in the English Market in Cork city. He’s famous not just for the creatures of the deep but for making a certain usually sternly serious monarch laugh her head off. (Apologies to her ancestor, Charles I, for that image).

It’s even worse for people in other parts of the country. Sure, we can all buy fish, but is it of the quality that makes you really want to eat it?

Of course, we have an odd relationship with seafood. Our waters teem with some of the best in the world but, traditionally, we have been lukewarm in our enthusiasm for the stuff. The Spanish, another largely Roman Catholic country, can’t get enough. So it can’t be the old fish on Friday as a penance thing, can it?

Well, the Spanish got out of that rule by helping Pope Pius V defeat the Turks at Lepanto in 1517. His Holiness let them off the Friday regulations in perpetuity.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that superb seafood is now available to everybody in the country thanks to Niall Sabongi’s Sustainable Seafood Ireland venture; Niall being the man behind Klaw and The Seafood Bar i n Temple Bar and, latterly, The Salty Buoy food truck.

You can shop for all manner of seafood — most of it local and all of it both sustainable and of great quality — on the website or you can try, as I have, the subscription box. For €50, you get a selection of what’s best on the day, all packed in recyclable and compostable materials, delivered overnight to your door. And they throw in recipes and serving suggestions.

There are also luxurious add-ons like fresh lobster and, when available, oysters, prawns and the like. We indulged and I expect you will too if you browse the online shop where, in addition, you get full details of all the boats, and their s ki ppers, t hat s upply t he business

I’ve long believed that the best thing to do with fish in the kitchen is very, very little. I never order a restaurant fish dish that sounds too f ancy- pants; this I have learned through bitter experience. Niall’s restaurants depend on tiptop raw materials and simply not mucking about with them.

So, that’s what we did with our box. There were two huge steaks of wild halibut and Johann used a very straightforward recipe from Kiwi chef Margot Henderson (whose husband, Fergus, incidentally, runs London’s milestone St John restaurant): baked with capers, lemon and butter. The advantage of such large pieces is, of course that they are harder to overcook. The fish was splendidly meaty with the saline, earthy hallmark of proper ( i e, wild, not farmed), halibut.

There was enough left over to flake into some mashed potato, bind with an egg and make into the most luxurious fish cakes crusted with sesame seeds, loosely based on Darina Allen’s recipe.

But before this we had tucked into enormous sustainable red prawns from Argentina simply cooked on the pan with olive oil and some finely chopped chorizo with roast red peppers, and — a Spanish theme emerged spontaneously — carpaccio of octopus which we draped over some warm

crushed potatoes and dressed with olive oil, lemon and smoked paprika, tapas style.

Mussels were a reminder of how easy it is to make that French bistro classic, moules marinière (basically soften some shallot and garlic in butter, add your mussels and a glass of dry white wine, cook for 5 minutes and finish by adding cream and fresh parsley). If in doubt, just Google Rick Stein’s recipe, but beware: it’s rich, especially if you hoover up the divine liquid element with crusty bread.

Surf clams from Galway Bay demanded that simplest and most classic of Venetian seafood dishes: with spaghetti, white wine, garlic, and parsley. This was my first time cooking it and I can confirm that the trick is to have your spaghetti pretty well ready by the time you start to cook your clams. Jamie Oliver has a recipe online that’s simply dead easy.

This may sound like a lot of cooking, but it takes very little time for the reward at the end.

Sustainable Seafood Ireland, just by making available such quality raw materials, is going to revolutionise how a lot of people eat and cook, regardless of where they live.

THE SMART MONEY

Subscription boxes start at €50, delivered weekly, fortnightly or monthly. And you can add all sorts of seafood, from Ireland and from overseas, but all sustainable, from the website. Very smart indeed.