If you’re still a traditional, hidebound New Englander, you may think of fish as cod or haddock. If you consider yourself a bit more au courant, farmed salmon, catfish, or tilapia may be on your menu.
But if you’re truly adventurous and you want to be on the cutting edge of seafood, get your plate and fork ready for the new hot new fishes — nearly all farmed, headed for the U.S. market, and all unveiled at the International Boston Seafood Show in mid-March.
The newest and hottest is likely to be Kona Kapachi, the trademarked name of a mild-flavored white fish grown in deep-water offshore pens off Holualoa, Hawaii by only one company, Kona Blue (WWF March 06).
“This fish is a winner. I’m sure it’s going to work really well on menus,” said Andrew Wilkinson, celebrity chef and owner of Skipjack’s restaurants, a trio of Boston seafood restaurants. “It has a mild flavor profile and good texture. It lends itself to lots of preparations.”
During the seafood show, Wilkinson’s menu featured the fish, farmed by the Kona Blue company of Hawaii. The chef who heads the seafood kitchen at the Culinary Institute of America tried it there, and pronounced it excellent.
While the fish can be cooked in many ways successfully, the sashimi-grade farmed product also attracts chefs because its high-fat content and good flavor lends itself to raw preparations such as sushi, sashimi, ceviche and “poke” (usually made with cubes of raw tuna). The fish is related to the Japanese hamachi, but the texture is defined by chefs as being more “crisp.”
No commercial fishery exists for Seriola rivoliana in Hawaii where it is known as yellowtail or almaco jack, because in the wild, the fish can be prone to a poisonous reef toxin and parasites. These do not occur in the farmed variety, according to Kona Blue CEO Michael Wink, because of the highly controlled conditions and the cage culture.
Wink said the three grams of heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids contained in 100 grams of Kona Kampachi give it one of the best fatty acid ratios of any fish in the world. Independent testing shows no `detectable’ amounts of mercury or PCBs.
The Hawaii State Legislature passed legislation allowing leases for open ocean aquaculture in 1999 and another law in 2001 to encourage new technology.
Kona Kampachi is not available in fish stores outside of Hawaii yet, and even there, close to the farm, the fillets sell for $19.99/lb. and the whole fish sells for $9.99/lb. Consumers determined to serve it at home can order it from the Kona Blue website (www.kona-blue.com), but overnight shipping will probably cost more than the fish itself. Several Seattle restaurants have the fish on the menu where it has proven popular with chefs and customers.
Barra-what?
Barramundi is the next contender in the “hot fish” category. An native of Australia’s tropical rivers and creeks, Lates calcarifer is a freshwater fish often compared to sea bass. This moist white fish also boasts a high Omega 3 content and a mild flavor.
More than one company in the world is growing barramundi, but the Australian company, Australis, is growing barramundi in an land-based grow-out facility in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, where tilapia was once grown by a previous farming operation.
This facility is an environmentally-friendly operation where nearly all the water used is recycled, the nutrients produced by the grow-out are recaptured, and the heat recovery system is highly efficient. Operators say the water is filtered an average of 250 times and 99.9 percent of it is reused. The system is self-contained. Any fish manure recaptured goes to local farmers for fertilizer. No hormones, antibiotics or colorants are added to the fish feed.
Australis advertises its U.S.-produced fish as sustainable, due to its farming practices, and as “born in Australia” because they hatch the fish Down Under, grow them to the tiny fish, or “fingerling” stage, then ship them to the U.S. for grow-out. The Australis Baby Barra (a trademarked name) are harvested when ordered and delivered most anywhere in the U.S. within 24 hours from the refrigerated Boston warehouse.
Barramundi is “the best fish I’ve ever worked with,” says Patrice Rames, executive chef of the Philadelphia restaurant, Patou. “I’m putting it on my menu.”
As when tilapia first burst upon the fish-farming scene, growers are experimenting with raising barramundi in a variety of settings. One university professor is growing barramundi in an experimental farm in the desert of Israel, using geothermally heated water brought up from different sub-desert levels to accommodate temperatures needed by the fish in different stages of its development.
Cobia
If barramundi is not a household word, Cobia may be only slightly better-known by the fish-eating public in the Northeast. But Cobia, (Rachycentron canadum) is a saltwater sport fish distributed worldwide in tropical, subtropical and warm-temperate waters, except that none appear in the Pacific Ocean.
In the western Atlantic Ocean this carnivorous, pelagic fish occurs from Nova Scotia south to Argentina, including the Caribbean Sea and is abundant in warm waters off the coast of the U.S. from the Chesapeake Bay south and throughout the Gulf of Mexico. There is no targeted U.S. commercial fishery for Cobia although they sometimes show up in trawls and gillnets. They are also known as ling and black kingfish, and sometimes called “crabeater.”
The flesh of the Cobia is opaquely white with hints of pink and it is often compared to the extremely popular and now highly controversial Chilean sea bass. The high oil content and large flakes allow versatile preparation that includes grilling, broiling, smoking and other cooking methods, but it is also used in sushi, sashimi and ceviche.
At the Boston seafood show a Las Vegas company, Malone Brothers Seafood, unveiled a Cobia product that is farmed in the South China sea in a similar manner to the Kona Blue operation, using deepwater pens anchored three to five miles offshore where fish grow to market size within a year. A Taiwanese company also introduced its farmed cobia to the U.S. market.
Salmon. New?
When is a salmon new? When it’s wild and white. Yukon King white salmon is a fish caught as it returns to the Yukon River in Alaska. Salmon gain weight and fat content for their return trip to the spawning grounds and the length of the river determines the amount of fat they pack on.
Copper River salmon has mounted an ambitious public relations campaign for the past many years, attracting contests in Seattle, won by the first chef or retailer to return from Alaska with the first fish caught. Copper River King is prized for its high fat, therefore healthy Omega 3, content and delicious flavor and texture.
Move over, Copper River, say the experts. The Yukon River is 3,000 miles long, longer than any other river a salmon must swim, and therefore the fat content of a Yukon River King is higher than that of any other salmon. Promoters are calling them the “king of kings.”
The Yukon River White King represents a small percentage of the Yukon King salmon with a genetic difference. They lack the gene nearly all other salmon have that enables them to take up the color from the food they eat. Salmon eat shrimp and krill in the wild, among other things, and take up the color from these species. Farmed salmon have colorants added to their food to create the shade of flesh consumers identify with salmon.
Whether white King salmon will catch on may be a moot point. Alaskan salmon fisheries are tightly regulated and the numbers of white Kings are not high, although their price is. And while the Kwik’pak Fisheries company of Emmonak and Anchorage, Alaska, introduced the fish at the Boston seafood show hoping to gain domestic markets, the fish may all be sold in Japan or Seattle before they ever fly or otherwise travel east.