Recipe: Scallops

Warm Black Pearl scallop and fennel salad with clementine dressing

Ingredients

Serves 2

4 baby fennel bulbs or 1/2 fennel bulb, very finely sliced
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
25 g/1 oz caster sugar
270 g/91/2 oz new potatoes, peeled or scrubbed (about 4 good size potatoes)
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
12 Black Pearl scallops
3 tbsp olive oil
15g /1/2 oz butter

Clementine dressing:

2 clementines
30 ml/2 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
6 basil leaves, shredded

Method

1 Stir the vinegar and caster sugar together in a non-metallic bowl. Add the fennel and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix well. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight until softened.

2 Cook the potatoes in a pan of lightly salted boiling water for 20-25 minutes until tender. Drain. Leave until cool enough to handle, then slice thinly.

3 For the clementine dressing: squeeze the juice from one clementine into a bowl. Add the 2 tbsp olive oil and mustard. Wisk together with a fork. Peel and chop the remaining Clementine, stir into the dressing and season. Set aside until ready to serve.

4 To cook the scallops: pat the scallops dry with absorbent kitchen paper. Heat the butter and 1/2tbsp oil in a heavy-based non-stick or well seasoned frying pan set over a high heat. When melted and foaming add the scallops and cook for 11/2-2 minutes without moving them until well browned underneath, turn over and cook for a further 1-1/2 minutes the other side.

5 Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan set over a medium-low heat. Add the fennel, their marinade and the potatoes. Heat through for 2-3 minutes.

6 To finish and assemble the dish: Working quickly, add the parsley to the fennel and potatoes, gently stir together. Check the seasoning then spoon along the centre of two warmed serving plates. Arrange the scallops on top. Stir the basil into the clementine dressing, spoon over the scallops and serve immediately.

Recipe: Prawn Shooters!

Prawn Shooters with Melba Bagels

Ingredients

Serves 4

Marie Rose sauce:

3 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tsp tomato ketchup

2 tsp lemon or lime juice

2-3 drops Tabasco sauce

Avocado salsa:

1/2 small avocado, peeled and finely diced

1 tbsp finely chopped red onion

1 tbsp lime juice

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp very finely chopped medium-hot red chilli

Herb crème fraiche:

3 tbsp crème fraiche

1 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (chives, basil, tarragon)

2 heads chicory

1 tbsp lemon or lime juice

1/4 cucumber, deseeded and very finely diced

200 g/7 oz cooked peeled prawns

lemon wedges and finely sliced and toasted bagels or melba toast, to serve

Method

1 For the Marie Rose sauce: Mix the mayonnaise, ketchup and the 2 tsp lemon juice together. Add Tabasco sauce to taste. For the Avocado salsa: Mix the avocado, onion, lime juice, olive oil and chilli together. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. For the Herb crème fraiche. Mix the crème fraiche, herbs and seasoning together.

2 Add 1 tbsp lemon juice to a small bowl of water. Finely shred 1 heads of chicory – transfer to the bowl of lemon water as you go to prevent browning. Drain well in a sieve, do not rinse.

3 Divide the shredded chicory between twelve shot glasses. Add 1 tsp of the cucumber to each glass. Cut the remaining head of chicory in half and separate the tips, halve if large and push one down the side of each glass.

4 Divide the prawns between the shot glasses. Spoon the Marie Rose sauce into 4 glasses. Repeat with the other two sauces. Chill until ready to serve.

5 To finish and serve the dish: Arrange three prawn shooters on each serving plate, with a lemon wedge some bagel toast. Serve immediately.

Recipe: Sea Bass

Seabass fillets with gravadlax rosti and sauce verge

Ingredients

Serves 4

For the rosti:

2 large main crop potatoes (about 300 g/10 1/2 oz each), peeled
70 g/21/2 oz gravadlax chopped
2 spring onions, finely sliced
3 tsp olive oil

For the sauce vierge:

1 beef tomato, peeled, deseeded and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp chopped mixed herbs (basil, parsley, tarragon, coriander)
75 ml/2 1/2 fl oz olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon

For the seabass:

4 x 140 g/5 oz seabass fillets, pin boned
2 tbsp olive oil
4 sprigs of parsley, to garnish

Method

1 For the rosti: Par-boil the potatoes for 5-7 minutes. Drain and leave until cool enough to handle, then grate coarsely into a bowl. Add the gravadlax and spring onion, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix well. Shape into 4 rounds using 9 cm/3 1/2 in cooking ring. Chill until ready to cook.

2 For the sauce vierge: place the tomato, garlic, herbs and olive oil in a pestle and mortar. Crush together. Stir in the lemon juice to taste and season .Leave for at least 15 minutes to let the flavours develop.

3 To finish and assemble the dish: Heat the oil for the rosti in a large non stick frying pan set over a medium-low heat, add the rosti and fry for 4-5 minutes on each side until golden brown and cooked through in the centre. Drain on kitchen paper. Keep warm. Wipe out the pan and add the oil for the seabass. Place the fillets in the pan skin side down and fry for 2-3 minutes until crispy, turn over and cook for a further 1-2 minute the other side. Working quickly place a rosti in the centre of each serving plate. Slide the seabass fillets on top. Spoon some of the sauce vierge over each fillet and around the plate. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and serve immediately.

Recipe: Chesil Beach Mackerel

Mackerel fillets with roasted vegetables, Lyonnaise potatoes and basil oil

Ingredients

Serves 4:

• 4 x 400gm mackerel, filleted
• 300ml olive oil
• 4 x Large Maris Piper potatoes peeled and cut into ¼” slices
• 1 x Onion finely sliced
• 2 x large courgette, sliced at an angle
• 1 x red pepper, large slices
• 1 x green pepper, large slices
• 1 x yellow pepper, large slices
• ½ x aubergine, large dice
• 1 x Red onion large diced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• Handful of Basil Leaves
• 60gm butter
• Seasalt and Cracked Black Pepper

Method

1 For the roasted vegetables: toss the chopped vegetables and crushed garlic in a little olive oil and season. Place in hot oven to roast and get good colour taking care not to singe.

2 For the Lynonnaise potatoes: blanch potatoes in boiling water for 1 minute and drain in colander. Heat 50ml olive oil in non-stick thick bottomed pan and add potatoes turning occasionally for 6 – 8 minutes until cooked. After 3 minutes add finely sliced onion and keep turning potatoes taking care not to colour onions too much adding the butter just prior to serving

3 For the basil oil: blend the basil leaves, 40ml olive oil, and a little seasoning blending till smooth.

4 For the Mackerel Fillets: heat a non-stick pan with a little olive oil and cook skin side down until the skin is crispy, turn and allow to finish cooking.

5 To finish and assemble dish: place the roasted vegetables and Lyonnaise potatoes in the centre of the plate. Put the Mackerel fillets crossed on the top and drizzle with basil oil around the side of the plate.

Why use M&J Seafood?

Why use M&J Seafood?

Did you know, M&J Seafood can deliver direct to your kitchen six days a week, with no minimum order? You also have until 4am to leave your order on our answer phone to gain same day delivery!

What more could a chef want? ......Oh yeah, great prices and top quality fish.... Well, we do that too!

We were also awarded....

We supply some of Britain’s top restaurants including names such as Raymond Blanc, with the best quality fresh fish six days a week.

Every single fish we sell is sustainable. So whilst we meet the demands of today, we are still protecting tomorrow!

We purchase large amounts of our fish from Day Boats that work exclusively for M&J Seafood, including the ‘Jessica Lynn’ who ‘s crew catch the most wonderful seasonal fish, such as Dover & Lemon Soles, Brill, Sea Bass, Ray Wings etc & the ‘Skin Deeper’ who’s crew fish exclusively for our amazing quality Tagged Wild Sea Bass. These boats fish along the Dorset Coast Line.

We have the ‘Filadefia’ and ‘Imogen’ in Newlyn, the ‘Stephanie’ and ‘Sue Ellen’ in West Wales too. All bringing in the highest quality fish available in the UK.

We also have our ‘British Skippers Scheme’. This basically give M&J first refusal to ‘cherry pick’ from the last days catch from our skippers trawlers, enabling us to get the best and the freshest fish. For more information on the British Skippers Scheme, please visit our website www.mjseafood.com

I believe we also have the best Mackerel available. A contract has been recently signed by M&J Seafood with a great family owned business at Chesil Beach, Portland. This great group of guys, row two rowing boats out to sea (approximately 100 yards), throw over their net, row back to shore and then using just pure man power, they pull the net in, resulting up to 1000kg of Mackerel every day.

They then put the fish into crates, pop the crates into the boats and drag them back to their beach side unit, where we will collect the fish later that day/evening.  So not only is ist sustainable, its Carbon Neutral too!

We secure our fish from all of the UK, enabling us availability of most species most of the time. If they are finding it tough on the South Coast, then we will get fish from the North Coast and vice versa, so availability is better than most of our competitors.

We also have an ever growing range of International Species available to you too. Great fish from the Indian Ocean such as Snapper, King Fish, Pomfret, Mahi Mahi, Swordfish and much more. So please feel free to contact us at any time if you require that something a little bit different.

So if you need anything at all, just give us a call;

Direct Mobile: 07894 096754

Office & Order Line: 01285 650031

For more information about M&J Seafood, sustainability, British Skippers Scheme, recipes, filleting techniques etc, please visit our website www.mjseafood.com

Regards

Simon

Simon Andrews

Area Sales Manager

Tel: 07894 096754

Twitter: @SimonAndrews76

Fish & Seafood Outlook for June...

Here is some information on the seasonal outlook for fresh fish for the month of June....

SALMON

The majority of farms have entered new generation stocks now and this means that large 5kg+ fish are scarce. Volumes in general are stable with plenty of 2-5kg fish about which should continue throughout the summer until September time. Things should level out on the larger sizes later this month freeing up further supply. In the past few years we have seen both Scottish and Norwegian prices at a similar level however, Scottish salmon is currently demanding a premium. Scottish volumes this year are not expected to increase as much as Norwegian volumes, however we anticipate no availability issues in the coming months from either source.


WHITEFISH
Availability should start to increase this month, which in turn should lead to stability in pricing, especially on Haddocks as they are now out of spawning season.
We are expecting decent supplies from Iceland, Faroes, Norway and Scotland for large Cod, however Codlings have been very difficult to source and this looks set to continue across the summer months. Hake, particularly out of Scotland is plentiful and a great alternative to Cod or Haddock.


SEA BASS & BREAM
Prices are continuing to rise almost week on week. This is largely due to financial constraints in Turkey and Greece, where farmers could not afford to put in large quantities of fry. It has been further compounded by a colder winter than normal as the fish have not grown as well as expected. This has led to a shortage of Bass, especially on 600g+ fish. Early forecasts for the summer suggest that prices could reach record
highs.

WILD SEA BASS
Ian Taylor and the crew of the “Skin Deeper” are back out landing stunning 1-2kg wild Bass. Ian’s day boat fish is some of the best you can get and is delivered to our Wimborne branch within hours of it being caught. All fish is slush-iced on board and individually tagged for traceability back to the boat.


TUNA & SWORDFISH LOIN
Our Friend of the Sea certified Tuna from the Maldives and Sri Lanka is all pole and line caught and competitively priced.
The Sword Loin season has started in Chile. Prices so far have been higher than normal for the time of year but if Chilean landings are at normal levels, we should see a reduction in prices over the coming weeks.


PLAICE & LEMON SOLE
We have a cracking selection of both Plaice and Lemon Sole from the North Sea readily available this month as well as their South Coast alternatives. This month we have especially keen prices on 5-6oz Plaice
fillets and 8-12oz whole Plaice.

DOVER SOLE
Our current direct landings of Dover Sole from Tom Russell and the crew of the “Jessica Lynn” will come to an end shortly as this year’s season draws to a close. Tom and his crew will switch their focus to Crab and Lobster pots as well as ring netting for Grey Mullet and Sea Bass. We have also had some great Dover Soles from some of the West Wales day boats too!


GREY MULLET
Our Grey Mullet is caught in open waters by boats fishing out of Poole Harbour and also by Welsh day boats out of Milford Haven. This under-utilised fish offers fantastic value for money and is growing steadily in popularity.


SCALLOPS
We are proud to have exclusive supply of Black Pearl Scallops in the UK foodservice. These fantastic fresh natural Scallops ensure consistent quality every time and are never previously frozen or further processed in any way. These are currently on offer too! Call your local M&J Seafood Branch for details.

For any more seasonal information, please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Call your local M&J Seafood branch today!... Find your local branch details HERE

Many Thanks

Simon

Why do I Blog about fish?

As an Area Sales Manager for M&J Seafood, you would expect me to say how proud I am of what we do and how we do it etc..... But remember, how many of you are in jobs you do not like, or think the company "isn't all that"? 

I only promote M&J Seafood and what they do, because I honestly think what they do is great.

I write this blog and tweet (@simonandrews76) because I want to, not because I have too, its not official M&J material and  I do this in my own time.....mostly at my wife's displeasure.... "not spending enough time with the family etc" but I am proud of what we do and what we have achieved. 

I have not been at M&J Seafood for that long, but have already noticed how important Sustainability is and seen the skills of our multi-award winning fresh fish team first hand. I already have a great understanding of where we get our fish, how we catch our fish and the importance of quality.

Any decent chef, will also care about these things and its important to support them. Sustainability is extremely important to us all. With out caring about the world today, we leave behind a sorry state of affairs for our children and grand children etc.

I recently found out that our Swordfish is fished in the Indian Ocean even though it is in the Mediterranean waters. This is because the Swordfish is not sustainable in the Med, but it is in the Indian ocean. So where it would be easier and probably cheaper to source in Europe, we don't as its not sustainable. 

That's a big deal. How many of us would think of just getting the cheaper and easier option? Not M&J Seafood.

We have great contracts with some of the best fishermen and their day boats all around the UK. The one you see me talk about the most is probably the Jessica Lynn, who is owned by skipper Tom Russell (see below) 

The quality of the fish this man and his crew catch is nothing short of amazing. Tom and his crew head out early each morning out towards Lulworth and Kimmeridge (South Coast of England), leaving their nets out over night to ensure the freshest catch in the morning. Tom is famed for landing the highest quality of Cod, Lemon & Dover Soles, Turbot, Brill and more. M&J have complete exclusivity to these amazing daily landings!

We also have a great contract with the 'Skin deeper' day boat which fishes exclusively for M&J Seafood for our amazing Tagged Wild Sea Bass, which happens to be on offer in this months 'Splash' promotion (Call us for the prices!).

We have two Day Boats in West Wales the 'Stephanie' and 'Sue Ellen' who have been landing some of the best Dover Soles around.

Day boat fish, is fished today and with our customers within 24 hours. No that's fresh fish!

Friend of the Sea

M&J Seafood offer the largest range of Friend of the Sea (FOS) accredited fish and seafood range in UK foodservice. Friend of the Sea is the only accreditation of its kind that monitors, evaluate and accredit fish and seafood from both farmed and wild-caught environments. Our range of FOS accredited products include: Lemon Sole, Plaice, Dabs, Dover Sole, Turbot, Brill and Tuna. Contact your local branch to find out more.

M&J Seafood's Sustainable Hero for the moth of June: The 'Dab'

Our Dabs come from a Friend of the Sea certified source and are now exclusively available to M&J Seafood in the UK. Dab is similar in flavour and texture to Plaice and offers excellent value for money. This under-utilised fish is a plentiful and inexpensive alternative to other flatfish and is best cooked on the bone to get the most from its flaky, juicy texture and sweet flavour.

So, now can you see why I am proud to work for a company such as M&J Seafood? Great quality, Fresh, Sustainable, sourced locally and sold nation wide.

Thanks for reading my blog, hope you enjoy the insight to M&J Seafood and the world of Fish!

Please feel free to comment!

Thanks

Simon