Fish of the day - Week 4 - Gilt-head Bream

Years ago, mention of bream in the company of fishermen would have likely to think you were referring to the act of cleaning off tar, by the application of heat,  from your boat. Tar was used for hundreds of years before paint to protect and preserve the wooden planks of fishing vessels - Ripple, the restored lugger in Newlyn still uses this method as a nod to her history - much to the chagrin of a few unaware yachties over the years who have left their once pristine white boast moored alongside her in the summer!

Bream, or in this case, a gilt-head bream landed by trawlers and netters working offshore. They are seldom landed by handliners working close to the shore. They look stunning, even more so when cooked and served whole on a plate as in the recipe below from Nathan Outlaw's British Seafood cook book.  Despite the delicate flesh, bream have a thick, scale covered skin that really lends itself to being cooked over charcoal in the summer BBQ season or baked whole in a hot oven - easy enough to 'carve' the fish at the table as it has big ones that make filleting easy. Like any fish, if you don't fancy dealing with the bones get your monger to fillet your fish and change the recipe accordingly!

As Britain's only 2-star Michelin fish chef says, you can get farmed bream - but here in Newlyn...

bream, be it gilt-head...

black, red...

or Couch's bream they all make fabulous eating - if you asked Keith Floyd for the colour of his choice he would opt for red - but then he would wouldn't he!