Mitch Tonks Fish

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The first section of Fish is titled Know Your Fish. This is important, as it demonstrates that Mitch Tonks wants us to understand what we’re cooking. He wants to equip us with a little knowledge that will help us in buying and cooking our seafood. However, it’s not all about the classroom – Fish also gives us some brilliantly simple seafood recipes from prawns and pasta to pickled cockles. With that in mind, Fish is very much the Complete Fish & Seafood Companion it claims to be – and Tonks is the perfect teacher.

Seafood – quick and easy

I’ve never met Mitch Tonks, but I’m sure I’d like him. ‘Seafood is very quick and easy to cook,” he writes. ‘Once you’ve mastered the basics and found a good fishmonger you can move on quite quickly to become an adventurous fish cook’. See, there is hope for all of us.

Tonks advises to approach the book by firstly reading Part One, where we can learn about our fishing industry and some of the people involved within it. We are also taught what signs to look for when buying fish to ensure it’s the freshest it can possibly be.

Overfishing

Importantly, the book doesn’t shy away from the topic of overfishing and features interviews with industry leaders and discussion on possible solutions. ‘I’m a great believer in making fisheries into assets that people look after and nurture, so we behave more like farmers than hunters’, says Wynne Griffiths, former CEO of Young’s Seafood.

Of course, we can all do our bit. Tonks urges us to buy fresh and seasonal, from trusted sources.

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Marvellous megrim to perfect Pollack

Part Two features the recipes, broken down into sections of white fish, oily fish and shellfish. For each species Tonks presents an informative and useful introduction, including taste descriptions, territory, environmental issues, seasonality, nutritional information and local names.

It’s all good stuff, although some of the taste descriptions can be a little amusing. Who would have thought a grey mullet has the aroma of, ‘new leather and deep, unrefined sweetness close to muscovado sugar’.

We have recipes for old favourites like cod, haddock and salmon. However, we also have a great selection for less popular species, such as pollack, coley, megrim, ling, sprats and John Dory.

Prawns and pasta to pickled Cockles

The shellfish section kicks off with an extravagant, special-occasion roast shellfish platter. We’ve made this recipe for a birthday seafood-style festival. This dish was the star of the show.

However, Tonks also gives us some simple seafood recipes, classics like pickled cockles, boiled langoustine with mayonnaise, prawns and pasta with garlic and parsley, and dressed crab.

Conclusion

Mitch Tonks’ Fish is a lovely seafood cookbook, one beautifully presented with fantastic photography and illustrations. Tonks also gives us handy tips on buying, preparation, storage and of course, cooking.  

If you’re a keen seafood enthusiast, then this book has to be part of your collection. There are more than 100 simple seafood recipes that you and I will be able to muster without too much difficulty.  

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