Another food back from the dead

[torquill]

Thanks (in a tangential fashion) to pecunium's recent musing about fish, I seem to have found a decent substitute for canned tuna, in taste and texture if not convenience. I'm happy about that.

I react to canned fish for some reason, and I've missed having the occasional tuna salad sandwich in the last couple of years. But today, reminded by the discussion about sardines and looking over the decidedly tuna-like shape of the mackerel at the fish market (they didn't have sardines today), I picked up three 8" Indian mackerel and brought them home.

They weren't as easy to de-bone as sardines, sadly; the best way to take out the spine appears to be to cook them first and shuck the meat off afterward. I also had the usual issue with fish, in that they manage to stick to my 30-year-old cast iron skillet, a feat even eggs can't manage... I had to chisel out the crispy bits afterward with a metal spatula, though they were worth the effort. (Thoughts, pecunium?) Still, I got a decent pile of nice firm fillets from the exercise.

Being larger than sardines, they're a little strong to eat plain -- I'll eat full-size mackerel, but I really prefer that it be marinated first -- so I tossed them into a bowl with some mayonnaise, dill weed, and a bit of garlic. As I just made my first successful set of English muffins yesterday, I warmed one up and made a sandwich. BINGO: it was perhaps a little more mild and soft than canned tuna, but it had the right flavor profile, which canned salmon most definitely does not. I had two sandwiches, as between the proper English muffin texture (nom) and the tuna salad I had missed (omnom) I couldn't resist another round. I was stuffed, but happy.

To even approach the same level of convenience as canned fish, I'd need to freeze pre-cooked portions, but I'm thinking about doing that just so I can have my occasional fix. Especially as I make more English muffins and correct my bagel recipe, as I really like tuna salad on both of those forms of bread. Oh, and little mackerel are dirt-cheap and easy to clean. :)

Comments

[foogod.livejournal.com]

Interesting.. I hadn't realized you couldn't eat canned tuna..

I'm assuming you've tried the tuna-in-a-pouch stuff as well as the stuff in actual cans?

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I've been borderline on it for years, and finally confirmed that it really can give me enough of my default high-heartrate-plus-fatigue allergic reaction that I should probably steer clear of it. Corn pasta just recently made that list too, which is a bit more of a crimp in my style. Corn chips flirt with it, but haven't been consistently bad enough to take fully out of my diet.

I'm not the first to report an issue with canned fish but not fresh; Cyndi Norman told me she was intolerant some years back. It's the canning process, not the can itself, so the pouched tuna (cool as it is) has the same effect, but no fresh fish does.

Still, I can live with a lack of convenience so long as I can have a reasonable facsimile when I get a craving. :) I should pick up a few more little mackerel-ettes while they're in the store this week.

[ladythmpr.livejournal.com]

I usually pouch-wrap fish in aluminum foil (parchment works, too) and bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes an inch. Very easy cleanup!