Wirrah Cod

[finin]

Now this is a huge eye opener for me and i suspect for many of you as well . The other day i went to dinner at a M8's house. Long catch up with him and the missus. Anyway cut a long story short dinner came around and as mick was an avid diver, i wondered to myself, crayfish, abalonie, a nice king maybe? NNOOOO

Out came a plate of battered Wirrah. WTF, literally took off my shoe and put it on the table and said to mick, " you know the story of the shoe,boot and wirrah ". Looks at me both he and his missus crack up, out comes a grey nurse out of his wallet and he puts it on the table. He says you can have that if you dont like it, if you do you owe me a hundred. $100 down the wirrah was demolished and wanting more.

Few more beers and we discuced the fish. Well wirrah is a cod so it should taste like cod right? Yes and it is great on the tooth. So why do we relate it to the taste of boot? The problem lies in the slime on the skin. If it is allowed to touch the flesh it puts a horrible taste to it, hence tastes like an old boot.

You have to scrape, rub or scrub the skin till it is free of the slime. Once you have done this fillet the fish on a seperate board or away from the area you have cleaned the fish lay skin side down and skin fish.

The problem has now been taken care of. Do in a beer batter and enjoy

[Geoff]

Finin. Was it the brown one with black spots. I've not eaten one due to their reputation of not being a nice fish to eat.

Someone must be buying them , was at the local seafood store on Saturday & to my supprise the store had about 6 or 8 in the cabinate.

$13.88 / kg

Geoff

[Black Bandit]

Finin,

It is not the slime on the skin that gives the bitter flavour.

It is a thin layer of fat just underneath the skin that taints the flesh when cooked intact.

If you take care when preparing the fish - i.e. ensure that you remove all of the fat layer below the skin - then the wirrah tastes great.

The flesh has good texture and fine flavour.

Clearly, the poor reputation of this fish is based on the ignorance of those persons that have not prepared the fish properly.

[finin]

black bandit, thanks 4 that! Agree with the ignorance thing!

Edited November 30, 2011 by finin

[tunastrike]

if that was all i caught for the day then its pizza for tea.