

There will be substantial centerline pin bones for the first 1/4 of the fish. The bluefish is disliked by many for being oily or fishy-tasting and even repellent when cooked. Fillet gently, because the flesh is very tender and flakes apart easily when raw. A strong-flavored, dark strip of meat on the fillet may be removed before cooking. What is the best bait for bluefish?įillet: Bluefish is fairly easy to fillet with a bone structure that is easy to follow. The larger the fish, the more pronounced the taste. Perfect summer snack with layers of flavor that brings back memories of warm summer afternoons and ocean breezes. Small bluefish are very popular for their neutral flavor profile. Bluefish has a strong flavor and one of my favorite preparations is to smoke the fillets and make a creamy spread to serve with crackers. Larger bluefish taste great and have a stronger flavor profile than smaller schoolers. The size of bluefish also affects table fare as well. Consequently, the FDA warns that young kids, along with women of childbearing age, have no more than one serving of bluefish weekly. While this is a problem with large bluefish, small bluefish also have very sharp teeth, and using a wire lead is usually practical. What is wrong with bluefish?Ī significant protein and Omega-3 fatty acid source, bluefish as food unfortunately is high in mercury and PCBs compared to mackerel or albacore tuna. There is a consumption advisory for bluefish due to contamination from mercury, PCBs, dioxin, and other chemicals. Is eating bluefish healthy?īluefish are an excellent source of selenium, niacin, vitamin B12, and omega-3s, and a good source of magnesium and potassium. Our fish is cut at the last minute and kept extremely cold until it hits your bag. Here at Locals, we love the flavor of fresh bluefish and take great care to handle it properly.

Bluefish has a strong flavor and one of my favorite. When handled incorrectly, the rich flavor of bluefish will get even richer. Growing up summers on Block Island, Rhode Island, we would surf-cast off the shores for bluefish. What do bluefish taste like?īluefish has a bad reputation as having a “fishy” taste. You can cook the bluefish using a grill, you can fry it in a pan, or you can. Treated properly, the bluefish is excellent eating, with mild, flaky meat, although larger specimens (those over 10 pounds) tend to have a stronger flavor than their smaller brethren. Bluefish is a tasty meal and you can serve it with a variety of other foods. Bluefish make up a major part of the diet of shortfin mako sharks and are also very important in the diets of swordfish. It can be grilled, baked, broiled or smoked, but is best prepared as fresh as possible as it does not keep very long or freeze well. Bluefish lends itself to tough treatment: smoking, for instance, or slow-poaching in oil.Sharks, tunas, and billfishes are typically the only fish predators large and fast enough to prey on adult bluefish. Bluefish is characterized by a strong taste and somewhat fishy odor that can be balanced by soaking in milk or being prepared using citrus. Some words about what you’re dealing with: dense meat with an off-white, almost gray hue, the pork shoulder of seafood. Alan Davidson, the British seafood don, says much the same in his indispensable “North Atlantic Seafood,” albeit in a different accent: “It does not keep very well,” reads Davidson’s entry for Pomatomus saltatrix, “but, if bought and cooked with dispatch, offers firm flesh of an excellent taste.” Bluefish, in short, is an excellent protein. I’ve also been told that you have to drain the blood from these fish right after you catch them so they avoid having a foul taste to them.

How untrue - and demonstrably so, as the following recipe will show!Ī fresh-caught bluefish of moderate weight, quickly cleaned and kept on ice, is as fine an eating fish as American waters produce. Some folks think the Bluefish has a very fishy taste but I didn’t think that was the case. (Some states have issued advisories limiting its consumption, citing high levels of PCBs in the meat.) The knock on it is it’s oily, it’s “fishy.” Its dark, compact meat is for cats, not fine, upstanding people like us. Bluefish is not a famous table fish it is inexpensive and widely available, but you don’t see it in restaurants often, even in this ravaged-ocean, sell-anything era.
