Caring For Your Catch

To ensure your catch of fish remains in prime eating condition here are a few rules I go by:

1. IKI every fish (for those who don't know, drive a spike down between the fishes eyes into the brain area for an immediate kill) This method is not only the most humane method of killing, but also ensure the fish does not thrash around your bin freaking out and filling its flesh with an overload of lactic acid.

2. Have an ice slurry in your bin. This ensures the fish is cooled quickly. Ice on the bottom of you bin does not cut it. The fish must get totaly immersed in a mixture of water and ice. (Salt Ice is the best)

3. When filleting your fish DO NOT under any circumstance run the fillet under fresh water!!! This does an unbelieveable amount of damage to the flesh and limits its life dramatically. Run the knife blade over the flesh to remove any scales or blood. That is all.

4. Store your fish so it does not sit in any of the juices/acids etc that come out of the flesh over time as this only taints it and reduces the quality and length of time the fish will last for. Also if covering with a plastic wrap prick heaps of holes across the top to let the fish breath.

All of these points above are CRITICAL if you not only want the best eating quality fish, but also want it to last for several days and taste as good at the end as it did at the start. I have IKI'd my fish now for over 16 years and the last 12 years religiously used an ice slurry of some form. I have only in the last 3 months fined tuned the best method to keeping fish fresh whilst in the fridge.

Whenever I have had fish recently supplied by others who do not follow these methods, and do the complete opposite, the difference is purely staggering. Don't get me wrong their fish was still great and appreciated, but I realised how much of a difference following the above steps makes. The quality of the supplied fish on its first/second night was the equivalent to mine on its fifth night.

i place mine on a plate with a bowl upside down then cover it wrap so juices run to the bottom keeps fresh for days