Half a pound of herring roes for £3.50 from Mummery's stall on Bury St Eds market today. I'm having them on toast for my tea.
We bought crabs, cockles, sardines, monkfish, squid and brown shrimps. No website but if you are in Kings Lynn you'll find Donaldsons at Austin Fields. Tel 01553 772241. They also sell seasonal game and have a very good delicatessen and cheese counter. Closed on Sunday and Monday. Other days 7am till 4pm.
Whenever I go to Great Yarmouth I call in at Northgate Fish to see what Paul Williams has caught in his boat. As well as being a local fisherman for over thirty years he's also a Caister lifeboatman and knows all about the sea. It's also the only place I know that you can still buy a traditonal Yarmouth bloater or a Red Herring which he smokes in his own smokehouse at Caister
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Took dad for a drive to see his favourite east coast fisherman - Dean Fryer - one of Rick Steins food heroes. All fishermen are heroes in our minds - up at 2am seven days a week in good weather, with no guarantee of any income. We bought sea bass, rock eel, a lobster and some small dover sole. Within twelve hours of being caught the sea bass were on the barbecue.
Here's the dilemma - bought one beautiful, large, creamy white, freshly caught Skate wing from this lovely fisherman. It cost £7 and I shared it with mum (it was that big...) last night. Then today went to a supermarket (Tesco) where Sea Bass was £2 each, so bought four. No wonder we don't have any fishermen left.
Asda have whole, fresh trout on offer for £1.50 each, and what a bargain they are. I have been hot smoking mine, and the fishmonger told me that the customer before me also bought 10 to smoke. My Weber-style barbeque works well, however Hugh Fearnley -Whittingstall uses an old bread bin.
A visit to Cro-o-mer would not be complete without going to the Bob Davies Crab Shop in The Gangway, these crabs are famous for being among the best you can buy. Watch Gary Rhodes with Bob Davies, showing Gary how to prepare them in his shop. I made my two huge dressed crabs into Crab Linguine for the whole family. You can find the recipe along with others on our recipe page here,
I bought some shark from the market on Saturday and cooked it with shallots, thyme and tomatoes and a bit of hot sauce, a la Caribbean Sunday Breakfast...mmmm. The man said it was a kind of dogfish-type-shark-thing but tried to look it up afterwards and couldn't find it on the list of British sharks that we are allowed to eat, so hope it wasn't endangered but whatever it was it was delicious!
drove to Aldeburgh and spent £25 I haven't got at one of the fish sheds. Bought two large dressed crabs, one for me - one for dad; a skate wing, a piece of cod, prawns and mussels for a fish soup that I cooked when I got home. Not very much money really for one of the most dangerous jobs there is - out at sea.
Also bought two types of pears and some apples from the side of the road in Coddenham.
After lunch we walk along the seafront and buy one of these fat beauties straight out of the sea. The whole cod was £14, cut into eight huge steaks by the fisherman and with another fish head thrown in for soup.
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