Seafood Research
Study Details of Underutilized Fish
All the underutilized fish used in our study of underutilized fish in restaurants are quite delicious and can easily shine in the hands of a home cook or restaurant chef. Below are a few culinary observations about how to work with each fish, including notes on breaking down, handling and storage, and cooking methods for each fish.
Cod (Atlantic)
Cod is not underutilized; it is, in fact, historically overfished in the Gulf of Maine and heavily regulated. It is an iconic and historic New England fish, generally familiar to most New England diners, so we used it as our control fish to compare to the underutilized fish in the study. Cod filets are thick, firm, and white with large, tender flakes when cooked. They have a lean, mild flavor profile with large flakes and a tender-firm texture. The mild flavor and cod’s ability to take on just about any flavor profile lends itself to consumers who hesitate to try fish for fear of “fishiness.”
Acadian Redfish
Redfish is small and a good candidate for cooking whole. It has a mild, sweet flavor with a medium-firm texture. Because it is small, it is hard to break down, and yields little meat as a filet (around 1-2 ounces). It is best to serve whole for that reason, but a creative chef can also find a use for the bodies, using them to make stocks, etc.
Hake
Hake is softer, more fragile than cod, with a mild, sweet, watery, creamy white flesh. It can be difficult to handle and is a lot more delicate than the other cod family members. Because it is delicate and soft, it can look like it has gone bad or beginning to deteriorate. It can also be more difficult to break down in that it is looks dissimilar to its other relatives as is the texture of its flesh. When cooking, it flakes/falls apart more quickly, so not the best for frying, but would do great in chowders and stews or other sauce-heavy, liquid-heavy dishes.
Pollock (Atlantic)
Pollock is a member of the cod family and very similar to cod (Atlantic), with firmer, moist, flakey white flesh when cooked with a slightly stronger flavor than cod, but still rather mild. Pollock holds up better to cooking (stays firm and maintains texture), so it is a good candidate for batter frying and soups. The flesh is also less white than cod, so these techniques will also cover up the greyer flesh, a potential turn-off for diners.
Spiny Dogfish
Dogfish is a type of shark with a sweet, mild flavor and oily, flakey, and firm flesh. Dogfish is perfect for frying, as in a fish and chips preparation. It is very difficult to break down whole dogfish into filets as improper deskinning risks tainting the fish thus ruining its edibility, and the tough skin can damage knives. It is also highly perishable (3 days max in proper storage). Considering dogfish are uniquely abundant in the Gulf of Maine, these issues need to be addressed. To make dogfish more readily available to restaurants and consumers, it should ideally be fileted on the boat by hand or brought to shore and broken down via specialized processing equipment, then flash frozen to extend its shelf life. The processing equipment makes the job much easier but is expensive, so it would need to be purchased by a distributor, seafood processor, or community supported fishery (CSF).
Skate
The wings (or pectoral fins) of skate, a member of the ray family (and more closely related to sharks), are mild in flavor, firm-textured with a high collagen content and are said to taste similar to scallops. The flesh is off-white and delicate. While cheaper to buy whole, it takes special training to filet and it is very perishable. While it must be fileted by hand, it holds up well to freezing. It has a challenging texture – slightly gelatinous and ribbed, so breading the filet helps.
How familiar/knowledgeable are you with the following fish species?
In an online survey of New England residents (MA, VT, NH, ME, RI, CT), respondents were asked how familiar or knowledgeable they were with the following list of regionally-local fish species and seafood types (see table). Most respondents had some to a lot of knowledge about tuna (94% of respondents marked either Somewhat Knowledgeable, Knowledgeable, or Very Knowledgeable), salmon (94%), and cod (91%). Respondents were most unfamiliar with cusk (80% of respondents had no knowledge), scup (75% no knowledge) and dogfish (74% no knowledge). In general, people do not feel very knowledgeable about many fish species. Salmon and tuna were the only species about which more than 30% of respondents felt very knowledgeable (35% and 38%, respectively). Other species that showed some levels of familiarity, at least when compared to others, included haddock, flounder, swordfish and halibut.
