Cornish ling, grapefruit and prawn dressing, spiced quinoa and lemon yoghurt

Not the prettiest of fish - but a great cod substitute - and brilliant for fish cakes.

Cornish ling, grapefruit and prawn dressing, spiced quinoa and lemon yoghurt 


A deliciously light and fresh dish bursting with tangy citrus flavours. 


Ingredients 


For the quinoa:


50g/1¾oz quinoa 
3 tbsp olive oil 
10g/½oz salt 
½ tsp dill seeds 
½ tsp fennel seed 
¼ tsp cumin seed 
¼ tsp ground cinnamon 
1 tsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 
1 tsp dill, finely chopped 
1 tsp chives, finely chopped salt and freshly ground black pepper 
150g/5½oz winter salad leaves 
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 


For the ling 


4 x 125g/4½oz Cornish ling pieces, skinned salt, to taste 
2 tbsp olive oil lemon juice, to taste 
115g/4oz Greek-style yoghurt For the grapefruit dressing 
50ml/2fl oz grapefruit juice 
50ml/2fl oz olive oil pinch salt 
50g/2oz peeled cooked prawns 
1 tbsp flatleaf parsley 
10g/½oz capers 


Preparation method 


For the quinoa, place all but about a teaspoon of the quinoa into a saucepan with 200ml/7fl oz water, one tablespoon of the olive oil and the salt and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes then cover with cling film and allow to steam in a warm place until the quinoa has cooled. Place the cooled quinoa in a large mixing bowl. Heat a frying pan until medium hot, add one tablespoon of the oil, the reserved quinoa, dill seed, fennel seed, cumin seed and ground cinnamon and toast for one minute. Pour the mixture onto the cooked quinoa then stir in the herbs. Mix well and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss the winter leaves with a little of the quinoa, the balsamic vinegar and the last of the olive oil. 


For the ling, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Season the ling well with salt. Heat a non-stick frying pan until hot, add the olive oil. Add the ling and cook on each side until lightly golden-brown. Remove the ling from the pan, and place onto a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 3-4 minutes. Remove the baking tray from the oven and season the ling with a little salt and lemon juice. Place the yoghurt into a bowl and season, to taste, with lemon juice and salt. Mix well. For the grapefruit and prawn dressing, place the grapefruit juice, olive oil, 25ml/1fl oz water and salt into a jug and stir until the salt dissolves. Pour the dressing into a small saucepan and heat through, then add the prawns, parsley and capers. To serve, spoon lemon yoghurt around 4 plates, and place a pile of quinoa in the centre of each plate. Top with a piece of ling, and spoon the grapefruit and prawn dressing over the top. Serve the salad leaves alongside.


As seen on BBC One's Saturday Kitchen last weekend - James Martin at the helm.

Evidence and Issues summary of consultation responses report Inbox x

Evidence and Issues Report for the East Inshore and East Offshore marine plan areas.


The final Evidence and Issues Report 2012 was published on 7 February 2012 following the consultation on the draft verison of the report between 24 November 2011 and 10 January 2012. We would like to thank everyone who provided feedback and comments, which we have taken into consideration and amended the report where appropriate. 


The report looks at the data we are using to inform our marine planning decisions, and also highlights issues and opportunities for a range of marine activities. The report includes: the evidence we are taking account of in marine planning our assessment of the evidence interactions between marine sectors and options for co-location emerging issues we need to take account of in marine planning. The report also includes the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) Scoping Report formal consultation (required under the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive). 


We have combined the SA scoping requirements with the other material in the report to reduce the number of documents at this stage in the marine planning process. 


Overview Report (PDF 40.9 MB) 
Chapter 1: Introduction and background (PDF 559 KB) 
Chapter 2: Evidence gathering (PDF 2.4 MB) 
Chapter 3: Introduction and approach to the sustainability appraisal process (PDF 113 KB) 
Chapter 4: Key activities (PDF 46.7 MB) 
Chapter 5: Interactions – between multiple activities and between activities and environment (PDF 19.5 MB) 
Chapter 6: Social, economic and environmental issues (PDF 14.5 MB) 


Annexes (PDF 12.5 MB)
Glossary (PDF 36 KB) 
Acronym list (PDF 68 KB)


The relevant page on the MMO site is here:


The report is underpinned by a range of documents and other information sources. Please contact us at planning@marinemanagement.org.uk if you would like to talk to us about the following areas of the report:

Savoury Shrove Tuesday supper.

 Two fillings on the go, red onion, porcini and other mushrooms in butter along with fennel and a cream sauce........

 to which the weekend's scallop roes are added (benefit of having friends who don't like 'em!)........

 spooned onto the pancakes..........

rolled and popped in the oven for 20 minutes till sizzling!

Cefas Endeavour on the move.

Research vessel Cefas Endeavour has moved on to the second phase of her MCZ Characterization Study down to the Western Approaches. After completing the survey work in the East Celtic Deep rMCZ and South Celtic Deep rMCZ she will now be working well south of the Cornish coast.

Showing both the areas of the study.

Slipper Skippers! - Mystery cartels who control price of British-caught fish.

Here's an article published February 14th in the Times by David Sanderson. The story of how quotas, which were once allocated to individual fishermen are now traded on a global market worth millions - but very often no longer owned by individual fishermen is another story of intervention gone wrong - perhaps there was never a better example of the law of unintended consequences! 


Read on........

The Government allocates quotas, but loses track of them as they are sold to 'barons' interested only in profit!

The price of fish is being inflated by private organisations that have been given free access to quotas worth billions of pounds and are on the brink of securing permanent control of Britain's fishing rights. 

The Government has admitted that Britain's 23 privately run Fish Producer Organisations (FPOs), to whom it hands 94 per cent of the country's annual quota, manipulate the market to boost their profits. Fish prices increased by 11.4 per cent in the year to June 2011, twice the increase in meat prices, according to the Office for National Statistics. But despite concerns that the opaque yet highly lucrative market is now being controlled by "quota barons", including investment funds, the Government has resisted calls to publish a register of ownership. It concedes that it does not know who owns and profits from Britain's quota allocation because of "invisible" transfers within FPOs: many members lease out their allowance at huge profit. The Government also admits that the quota rights — originally attached to vessels fishing in British waters in the late 20th century — may end up permanently in the hands of the FPOs, who it says now have a "legitimate expectation" of ownership. 

Critics have described it as a "privatisation of the seas" without any benefit to the Exchequer.In 2010 the value of the 606,000 tonnes of fish landed by British vessels was £719 million; the leasing of a one-tonne quota of cod can fetch up to £2,500. Anne McIntosh, the Conservative MP who is chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, said it was astonishing that the Government did not know who owned the quotas it handed out. She called for the Government to publish a register, adding that it was not in the country's interests for fishing rights to be owned by non-fishermen. 

Peter Aldous, the MP for Waveney, which includes the fishing port of Lowestoft, described it as a scandal. He said that reform of the system would be difficult because of the "powerful vested interests that will resist change". 

The current system of quota allocation has also resulted in fishermen with boats of less than 10m (33ft) being denied access to the seas. They comprise 85 per cent of the UK fleet yet receive only 4 per cent of the annual quota as they are usually excluded from FPOs. If the owners of smaller boats want a share of the quota, they usually have to rent it from FPOs, but many said they could not afford the price demanded. Even if they could, FPOs are not offering shares to them. The small boat owners claim that the system forces them to discard tonnes of fish. 

Jerry Percy, the chairman of the New Under Ten Fishermen's Association, said that the Government had allowed the "family silver" to be taken away from working fishermen. "Nobody except the Producer Organisations know what's going on," he said. "It could be hedge funds, big international companies or even football clubs that are holding the quota and making money." Thomas Appleby, a law lecturer at the University of the West of England who has been trying to discover who owns Britain's quota, said a small group of wealthy people were renting out "public property" for profit. He said the Marine Management Organisation, the quango administering fishing, rejected his latest request for information but said that although the Government did "retain ownership of fish quotas ... the industry has an established legitimate expectation for access". "They now view it as theirs," Mr Appleby said. "But the Exchequer is losing out because usually when you privatise assets the public is compensated." He added: "Because we have FPOs trading among themselves and forming cartels, there's an element that they are controlling geographic areas. 

There could be abuse of a dominant position, which would be bad news for the consumer." Richard Benyon, the Environment Minister, acknowledged to the select committee that FPOs would restrict supply of quota to the under-10m sector.In a statement his department said that it would keep quota back for commercial reasons, including "to increase the prices obtained by their members for the quota they do land". Jim Portus, chairman of the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations, defended the system. He said the organisations were not "secret", adding that the FPOs had been pushing Defra to publish a register. He said that any flaws in the system were because of "ministerial inefficiency". 

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it was "seeking a publicly available register of quota allocations". 'Slipper skippers' reel in the net profits.

The Marine Management Organisation, a government quango, administers the scheme but admits that many transactions within and between the fish producer organisations are invisible to it. This has led to speculation that investment companies and even football clubs now own FQAs, which they lease out for profit. Currently, some 96 per cent of the British allowable catch goes to the 23 FPOs. (One of these is the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation who manage the quotas for the majority of Newlyn and other Cornish vessels)

The remainder is distributed by the Marine Management Organisation, for free, to the small-ship fleet. In 2010, Britain had 6,477 registered fishing vessels — a reduction of 16 per cent from 2001. More than 5,000 of these were in the under-10m fleet. In the same year these vessels landed 606,000 tonnes of sea fish (including shellfish, which are not subject to quotas), valued at £719 million. The price of leasing fixed quota allocations varies depending on the fish stock, the time of year and the section of British coastal waters it has been allocated to.

In response, French fishing consultant Yan Giron gives his view from across the Channel - he is keen to point out that he is making an observation on the findings as they are of real relevance to the place the French operators find themselves - that is from the artisan fishermen's perspective

I am not involved in day-to-day UK fish system, but here are some views given from the other side of the Channel (how we see the FQA system and its consequences) After having read again this hot issue, hot for Britain and hot for whole EU because FQAs are ITQs of TFCs, and that is what EC want for everybody: - truly, the role of FQA in discarding is real for me and minimized in public debate regarding this issue. I am glad to see that written in fair words. And this makes us read differently Commission wish to implement both an overall ITQs system AND an overall discard ban. Otherwise, they cannot promote ITQs in multi-specific fisheries.

I wrote a tribune in Le Marin, our professional newspaper month ago. - Problem of FQA is not new, and ITQs too. I think there is a huge gap between neo-liberal economy principles and reality. ITQs promoter think that they let rule the fishing activity through the market forces. But, it means they have to follow economical rules, and one major is fair competition and no underneath constraints. BUT, they are in fact 2 markets working with close links and under constraints: the quota market and the landed fish market. And underneath constraints are strong: constraints to fish, access to fisheries, KW and GTU management, even composition of catches in mixed fisheries and implementation or not of a ban on discards.

Last point is huge too : you can’t catch your most valuable fish if you don’t have also low valuable fish quota. And you may pay the highest prices for these low value fish quota, especially if you absolutely need them to catch the good price fish, and if they are scarce. - Impact of speculation is thus huge. They wrote : price of cod quota :up to £/kg 2.5. It is a quota given to a species, not to the size of fish. Prices of landed cod range between £/kg2 to 4, depending on size of fish. Now consider all the value taken from your catches, I have dock rumours which said fish quota leasing accounts now around 50% of the fish value or catching expenses…. And you have to take out fuel expenses, etc.

Without a ban discard, you have no choice: you have to high grade / discard. With a ban discard, and with no improve of selectivity, you are economically dead. 

(He goes on to raise some further questions following the logical conclusion of the current line of thinking)

Is this what Europe want ?Artificially increase the catching expenditures ? without an economical return for the fishing boats ? How do you want to self finance modernisation and day-to-day profitability? Windsail your fishing boat (he's having a go Yan! ed) and recruit low cost manpower ? We may find cheap Libyan and Egyptian manpower. I have nothing against foreign crew, but we also have employment to safeguard.

Monday's fish auction at Newlyn.

The Ajax was one of several netters that put their fish on the market this morning........

along with the Harvest Reaper seen here alongside the market......

no equal ops for some white good then.......

topping up the ice tubs.......

the new fender production line shows work in progress.......

as the Mount's Bay gig rowers fail to spot the Mount while on a practise session!

Bound in!

Gill netters Ajax and Silver Dawn make their way back to Newlyn at the end of the neap tide. Silver Dawn's fish will go on a lorry to be auctioned elsewhere while the Ajax's trip of hake and other white fish will be split between the market at Newlyn and Brixham.


The two other tracks show the trawler Crystal Sea working south of Newlyn wile the big netter Govenek of Ladram works her gear a few miles south of the Lizard.