Description
This may be the most renamed fish in the Southern Ocean. Fortunately, all those names do have one thing in common. They are naming the same fish (something that cannot often be said about imported fishes carrying multiple names).
Red Snapper, Golden Snapper, Red Bight Fish, Nannygai are so named for their beautiful red skin (possibly more pink hued to some colourists).
The red snapper in the Wild South Seafood packages is line caught, by actual handline. It is killed by the ancient Japanese technique of Iki jime.
Iki jime is a method for inserting a spike into the fish’s brain, killing it instantly. This ensures that the fish does not produce lactic acid, which would otherwise make the flesh taste sour.
Red Snapper, or Bight Fish, is also caught by deep sea trawl. However, we do not include trawled Red Snapper in our product line as it decreases significantly in quality. This is because snapper in particular, unlike other deep sea trawl fishes such as flathead which do retain their quality, is a soft fleshed fish, with a slighter higher oil content, and so is more susceptible to the increased handling involved with deep sea trawled fishes.
Red Snapper has firm, slightly oily white flesh that can withstand cubing, cutting and dicing. It can also look gorgeous pan-fried with that red skin still on (so long as there is enough butter and heat involved for lovely crispy skin). Baking it in the oven with a crust of something herby or nutty suits its fat slightly oily fillets perfectly. Even the amateur chef will have a hard time drying it out.
Another benefit of snap frozen at the source Australian fish fillets is that, because you only defrost them when you are ready to eat them, if you are up for cutting and dicing of your fish fillets, you can do so when they are still slightly frozen. Like the best sushi chefs do. It allows you to have fine knife skills even if you haven’t quite worked out how to sharpen your knives like a samurai on a naked steel!
