Seafood we love: Sayyadieh (Fishermen’s Dish)

Last updated: 4 November, 2024 @ 12:04

August sees a good number of grey mullet landed into our hometown of Poole in Dorset.

Being an unfashionable fish, it can be tricky sometimes to find a recipe for the humble grey mullet – but in Sayyadieh (Fishermen’s Dish) from the cookbook Falastin, we’ve found a humdinger.

Falastin describes itself as ‘a book of recipes and stories’, featuring dishes which will bring the reader ‘lots of great meals, good times and a strong connection with Palestinian cooking’.

Sayyadieh, or fishermen’s catch, is a combination of spiced rice and pan-fried fish – a favourite in the coastal towns of Jaffa, Haifa – and now Poole, Dorset.

The recipe suggests using a combination of ‘white fish and prawns’, but traditionally the ingredients for the dish include whatever has been caught that day – with grey mullet a more -or-less permanent feature.

As the Fish Face Seafood Blog in-season spotlight on the grey mullet notes, it is a fish often overlooked by home cooks – perhaps owing to its reputation as a sluggish, fatty fish.

However, in the Mediterranean, the grey mullet is a highly esteemed fish – and after cooking Sayyadieh, we can see why. (You can learn more about the three species of grey mullet found in UK waters here).

Cooking Sayyadieh: ingredients

In addition to a handsome grey mullet, we also included in our Sayyadieh an immaculate wild gilthead bream and a handful of prawns.

The majority of the other ingredients needed are a mixture of store cupboard staples and kitchen essentials, such as basmati rice, garlic, onions, cumin, butter, lemon, parsley and green chilli.

The remaining ingredients sound like leftovers from a Christmas-cake bake-off: cinnamon and cinnamon sticks, allspice and flaked almonds.

Meanwhile, the costlier items include saffron and pine nuts – but the finished dish really is worth it.

Cooking Sayyadieh: preparation

The good thing with dishes such as fishermen’s stews and soups is that a good deal of the preparation work can be done in advance.

It’s no different when it comes to Sayyadieh, with the caramelised onions and toasted nuts being done the day before if needed.

The rest of the prep is straightforward, with the most time consuming element being the filleting of the fish and the deveining of the prawns.  

Cooking Sayyadieh

The ingredient list may be lengthy, but the dish is easy to cook – and the scent arising from the hot, sizzling pan once the rice meets the caramelised onions, garlic, chilli, cinnamon sticks and allspice lets you know you’re on to a winner.

With the fish and prawns fried, it’s simply a case of putting the dish together and serving with nothing more than tahini sauce and some lemon slices.

All in, with some prep the day before, you’re looking at around a 45-minute journey to a fragrant, light, flavoursome seafood dish that tastes as good as it looks.

It’s also a dish which helps elevate the unfashionable grey mullet to superstar level.

As the maestro Rick Stein would say: ‘Delish!’

Cookbook: Falastin

Falastin is a beautifully presented cookbook with some great seafood recipes – including of course the marvellous Sayyadieh.

Through its stories and recipes, the book also communicates the complexities, and dangers, of everyday life in Palestine – including those unique to the fishermen of Gaza.

For us, Falastin by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley is a must-have.