Please don't tease the Gurnard Fillets for being a little weird looking. They may not be the most common fish in the fish shop but they're rising in popularity faster than ever. Ours is sustainably caught by day boats off the coast of Cornwall.
Gurnard is classic in fish stews and its flesh melts in your mouth. If you prefer, heat up your frying pan until smoking hot, season your fish, throw in a knob of butter until it melts then put the Gurnard in skin side down an cook for 3-5 minutes until crisp and golden or white all the way through. Not so ugly now!
Our fish is wild and comes from day boats. The boats fish in West country waters, and we buy the fish from Cornish and Devon Fish Markets. Looe is our preferred market but we also use Newlyn, Plymouth and Brixham from time to time. (Sometimes, when the weather is too extreme on that coast, the boats can’t go out, we will then buy from other selected Day Boats within UK waters.)
Gurnard (100%)
Dietray Contains fish. May contain traces of Crustaceans, Molluscs.
Keep below 5°C, preferably 2°C. Once open eat within 2 days.
Gurnard is fast becoming a hot fish on restaurant menus. We've had it both in classic, saffon-kissed fish stews, as well as simply pan-fried in a bit of butter until the skin goes super crispy and the fishy flesh just melts in your mouth. To pan-fry it, the key is to season the fish well. Get your frying pan really hot. Add a hunk of butter and let it sizzle until melted. Then, add your fish, skin side down and cook it for 3-5 mins, checking only one or twice, until it's really crisp and golden. This is where most of the cooking takes place. Once this is done you only need to cook it on the flesh side or a minute or so, just until it turns fully white.