Baked Pollack (or Pollock) with herbs and seaweeds

Prepping the Pollack

While exploring and playing on a delightful beach on Islay I managed to catch this lovely Pollack, total fluke catch really, was doing a demo cast for Liz of https://foragefinefoods.com when it took the lure. It weighed approx 1.5 - 1.75lb. I'd been thinking (and hoping) of catching and cooking a fair decent fish using this method for a while and I'm really glad I got to do so while on Islay and in such grand company.

After dispatching the fish at the beach, gutting and cleaning - all parts discarded became food for other creatures - it felt only fitting to clean it in the very waters it had come from.

Ingredients:
Pollack (or Pollock) Wild Thyme
Wild garlic
Sweet Cicely
Sorrel

Seaweed:
Pepper dulse
Carrageen
Sea lettuce
Sea spaghetti
Kelp

Poaching liquor:
Plum Liquer
Alexander root tincture
5 Carrot bitters

Method:
1) On returning to the hoose, 5 incisions were made on both sides of the fishes flanks and stuffed with wild thyme, crushed wild garlic stems, sweet cicely and sorrel, the internal cavity received pretty much the same treatment (there may have been other herbs used but I can't bring them to mind at the moment...).

2) Then the seaweeds were scattered all over the fish; pepper dulse, carrageen & sea

Baked & ready to open n eat

lettuce & then sea spaghetti used to tie them in place, all this was then wrapped in kelp.

3) The fish was put on a cooling wrack, over a shallow metal baking tray into which was added Ellen Zachos' 'Ditch Plum Liqueur' - with its deep and entrancing fragrances reminiscent of marzipan/almond/sherry/alcohol..., alexander root tincture, 5 carrot bitters and some water, all this was then wrapped in tin foil, placed in a pre-heated oven and baked for 25/30 minutes.

4) This was then served alongside a variety of other delightful foraged dishes from the Islay posse (I'll add those recipes once I've had them mailed to me from their creators). Top evening had :)

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