Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I eat the dry ones like chips.

I'd better start acquiring a taste for them if they're good.

Although, with my new addiction to anchovies in olive oil, I'm not sure my body really needs the additional salt.

The first taste of the squid made me gag, but a month or so later, they seemed sweet and delicious. I even had the same response to Nori thirty years ago. I thought it smelled like cat food. Actually I guess it kind of does. Just delicious cat food.

It's been a month, so I thought I'd eat one.

I tore it in half and the skin peeled away as expected.

Very firm flesh and they smell a little fishy. Not in an off way, but like the smell of the dried anchovies. Definitely more fishy smelling than anchovies in oil.

I shook off the salt from three little fillets and put them into some extra virgin olive oil, then put them back into the fridge to sit for a few days while we go and stay on the river for a bit.

I also ate one.

Kind of chewy and fishy.

Not that great.

But it didnt taste off or anything.

I'll report back in three hours or so to see if I'm dead yet. (setting an alarm now)

Mrs Bullwinkle has emergency on speed dial to save dialing those extra two digits.

Any bets?

or

I didnt die!

Winner

Salted fish has been around for a while, so I reckon the process is probably reasonably bullet proof!

If you want some good olive oil, buy some of my sisters

Your sisters are olive oil?

Cool!

Uck uck uck. I love's me Olive Oyl.

Yeah, I'm sure that's true.

And the nose knows when it comes to these things.

But it's still a strange leap of faith the first time you eat fish that's been sitting in the back of your fridge for 30 days

The only ill effect has been that it was a little disappointing.

And that I think the old bottle of olive oil I used might have been a little past it's prime, and the lid had that slight hint of rancid that extra virgin olive oil gets when it's not as fresh as it should be. Normally we go through it pretty quickly, but we recently ran out, but I found some dregs in the back of my LARDer.

I'm off to the river for a few days, so I might bring back a carp to try salting. Given that carp are an oily, stinking, spawn of satan, horror fish, salting may well bring out the best in them.

That, and I trust that 95% of the world cant be completely wrong about carp.

Although, so far you've (everyone who isnt me +5% or the world) been all wrong about the small salted dried anchovies I've been trying to cultivate a taste for.

Don't get me wrong, I'll get there. I've eaten a stack of moths, and beetles, and locusts, and other stuff that probably doesn't have a latin name in Papua New Guinea. And even a few Nemo looking fish that would probably sell here for a zillion bucks in a pet store. But these little dry anchovies are so far, not food.

I also don't actually like real extra virgin olive oil so much. I dont mean the stuff you buy in supermarkets, I mean the stuff Mrs BullwinkleII's adopted Italian Grandmother (ie Mrs BullwinkleII adopted her (sadly now departed) as her extra grandmother after meeting her in a westfield) would give us. It was amazingly strong, genuinely first cold pressed (or whatever it was) and yet another taste I need to acquire.

She was a source of "contrabando cheese" as well. Unpasteurised I presume. I doubt there was actually a smuggling ring involving cheese. Although cheese does come in rounds.

A word of caution. There are a lot of things that could go wrong but generally don't. They may make you sick or land you hospital. Many of them don't taste bad.

The biggest risk with this sort of thing is botulism. Which doesn't smell or taste of anything. The goods with Botulism is that you won't feel sick.

You will just be dead.

So always practice good food technique and you should be fine.

Don't rely on taste or smell as a defence.

You'll know something is wrong. Whether you can do anything about it is another story

Thanks.

I guess

from wikipedia...

Death occurs in 5 to 10% of people. Botulism can affect many other animals.[1] The word is from Latin, botulus, meaning sausage.[2]

It's not looking good for my sausage project

It's a bit like vaccines because communicable diseases are so rare people's perception/ belief that they ate needed has gone down.

Because food poisoning is so rare these days people in the homemade and alternative food space often believe you don't have to worry too much. You do have to be careful but as long as you are careful you don't have to be worried.

On the other hand many people are seriously overly concerned about hygiene.

I tied my faux anchovies again after sitting in olive oil for a week, but I'm sad to say they dont taste a lot like anchovies.

Just really fishy flavoured salted fish.

But I didn't die!

And on the up side I just finished the slow consumption of an "ikan bilis" (dried anchovies from Malaysia) and found myself reaching for another one.

I guess that means I now like dried anchovy.

It only took around ten to start seeing them as food.

I'll try the homemade anchovies again if I can find some to buy fresh from a fish market.


I'll also try using the version I made as bait. It should last for ever in a tackle box, and I might try using fish oil (of the fishing attractant variety) instead of olive oil to store them in. It should soak in nicely, and slowly leach out over 15 minutes or so.

Maybe.

You dont need to marinate spam.

[EDIT FROM THE FUTURE - this relates to a post that has been deleted. It was spam.]

Interestingly, I had a Japanese friend and her kids here a while back, and we all tried my salted fish made all that time ago, and all agreed they were actually pretty good.

The flesh was quite firm, but not too dry.

I rinsed off the salt, so I suspect that if I give them a rinse, pat them dry, and put them in oil, I'd have anchovies. I'm out of extra virgin olive oil, but next time I go shopping, I'll try again.