OUR ALLOTMENT - Life on The Weald September 2016

September 2016

After only a couple of years on the waiting list, Sylvi's name came up and we were offered and accepted a half plot (125sq m) on The Weald, which is the one we wanted, and we have friends who have plots there too. Hopefully, we can come to a mutual arrangement over watering when we are away.

It looked a daunting task as it was quite overgrown and had been abandoned for more than a year and there was an accumulation of rubbish - metal, plastic, fencing, the remains of an old shed, roofing felt and old carpets, chicken wire and more. Sadly the adjacent half-plot is still in a derelict state.

The Council agreed to remove the metal and plastic but not the roofing felt, carpets or timber so we had several trips to the dump and burned some of the untreated wood.  Once most of the rubbish had gone and the council has strimmed the plot, it looked a little less daunting.

We've enlisted the help of Luke and Charlie and will have a concerted effort at the weekend.  There is still a lot of rubbish including the remains of a wire fence all tangled up with brambles and loads of paving stones which hopefully we can use for the base of a new shed.

I hope to bring one of the raised beds from Luke's allotment at Mile Oak where I am co-worker so that I can sow some broad beans in November.

John Austin

Hove September 2016

SCORPIONFISH

Cabracho - scorpionfish

Cabra, gallineta and many more.....

Maybe I should learn to trust my instincts more.  I saw some fish in Ersoski in Santa Pola, labelled Cabra, and assumed them to be scorpionfish, which I had seen on the menu in several local restaurants.  It's a fish with a sweet taste and firm flesh which I had initially eaten several years before at the Zlato Sidra (Golden Anchor) in Lucija, near Portorož, Slovenia, caught fresh from the Adriatic.

I had not come across the name Cabra before, but fish in supermarkets and fishmongers in Spain almost always have a label indicating their scientific name and where and how it was caught. This notification of source (NW Atlantic) confirmed it as Cabracho so I assumed Cabra (which is otherwise goat in Spanish) was a Spanish abbreviation.

Having no access to the internet, I thought I would seek some confirmation from my books, which only added to the confusion.

In a rather old cook book Elizabeth Cass says Cabracho has no translation into Spanish but that it resembles Rascasio and is good baked in the oven.  She describes  Rascasio as an essential ingredient for fish soup.  I have since seen what I thought to be Scorpionfish labelled Gallineta (little chicken) but Dr Cass says this is Sand piper, a fish "resembling Rascasio but greyish in colour and very good cooked in the oven". But the Gallineta I had seen were red - definitely not grey - and looked like Scorpionfish to me.

Perhaps Davidson's Mediterranean Seafood might be clearer (Mediterranean Seafood

Alan Davidson 2002 Prospect Books: ISBN 978-1-903018-94-1) Here he describes Cabracho as Red Scorpionfish (Fr Rascasse rouge) and particularly recommends the cheeks as not unlike lobster. In France, Rascasse is regarded as an essential ingredient in bouillabaisse.

Davidson lists Rascacio as Black scorpion fish and Gallineta as Blue mouth scorpion fish, reddish brown in colour but with the inside of mouth blue.  My Gallineta did not have a blue mouth. It was definitely Cabracho , red scorpionfish!  Davidson describes Gallineta as similar to Redfish, also known as Norwegian haddock, which is found in the Atlantic.

In his book Seafood of Spain & Portugal (The Tio Pepe Guide to the SEAFOOD of SPAIN and PORTUGAL: Alan Davidson 2002 www.santanabooks.com ISBN 84-89954-21-6) Davidson confirms Cabracho is Scorpionfish/rascasse rouge which he says is called Pola de mar (chicken of the sea) in Catalan and he recommends baking whole. He says that rascacio is also scorpionfish, rascasse noire in French but smaller.  According to this book there are two varieties of Gallineta, G.rosado, slender rockfish found in the western Mediterranean and Morocco  (Fr rascasse rose) and Gallineta which, like Dr Cass, he says is Bluemouth which in Gallicia is called Cabra da altura (goat of the deep). Confusingly, the Portuguese use the term Cabra for gurnard

Clearly there are several different varities of scorpionfish, widely distributed in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. If you wish to confirm which fish it is you could consult the scientific name, usually on the label in Spain:

Cabracho - Scorpaena scrofa
Rascacio - S. porcus
Gallineta rosado - S. elongata
Bluemouth - Helicolenus dactylopterus.........

Or not bother and just assume that if it looks like Scorpionfish, it probably is and will taste delicious!

Apart from the fact that common names in Spain seem to be used, interchangeably, for different varieties of fish there is the added confusion of several languages and regional names, which are given in Wikipedia as:

Catalonia escórpora

Cantabria cabracho

Valencia escorpa

Asturias tiñosu

Balearics cap root
Ibiza cap roja

Murcia galling

Cartagena rascasote

Galicia escarapote

Pais Vasco (Basque) krabarroka or itsakabra  (Cabra de mar in Spanish)

Canaries and Andalusia rascacio

Sea chicken, goat of the deep? If it looks like this

it's almost certainly some variety of scorpionfish and I recommend you buy, cook and enjoy.
Baking or poaching is recommended or use in fish stew. I have posted a recipe which I tried in Santa Pola in August 2016.  The spines can be mildly venomous, but can be removed by your fishmonger but if you handle carefully the poison is denatured in cooking and rendered unharmful.

John Austin

August 2016, Santa Pola

SCORPIONFISH

Poached scorpionfish - cabracho

We were staying in Santa Pola with family and friends and I decided to oven cook a whole Corvina as it had been such a success the year before with a family gathering.

Whilst I thought that one large Corvina was enough for 6 adults and 4 children (two of whom were not fish fans), my daughter-in-law, Nicole, (rightly as it turned out) thought we needed more. There was Cabracho on the fish counter and I couldn't resist.

Corvina and Cabracho

Most cookery books recommend baking or using in fish stew, so I decided on a compromise and poached in the oven,

Ingredients:

Scorpionfish, cleaned weighing about 3/4 -1kg

1 clove garlic

1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 glass white wine

1 cup fish stock/court bouillon

1 lemon and or 1 teaspoon sumac

Method:

I made a court bouillon with a small chopped onion gently fried and softened in olive oil, added a stick of celery and some chopped celery leaves and one carrot finely chopped, a large cup of water and brought to the boil and simmered for 20 miniutes.

Place the fish, seasoned inside and out with salt and freshly ground pepper, in an ovenproof dish

(I had also sprinkled some sumac over the fish). Pour over the court bouillon and one glass of white wine (or dry sherry or vermouth), Add a splash of olive oil and juice of half a lemon, cover with foil and place in heated oven 160C for about 30-35 minutes.

Before serving squeeze over remaining juice of half lemon.

Serving:

I served it whole at the table and the top fillets are easy to remove, then the backbone pulls away easily revealing the two fillets underneath.  The fish can be served with the cooking juices. And don't forget the head....

And did the cheeks taste like lobster as the books suggest?  I don't know. One cheek was eagerly devoured by 6 year old Jerome who is a fish lover and the other by 10 year old Leelah who doesn't normally like fish.  When asked what she wanted for dinner the following day, Leelah exclaimed in a loud and enthusiastic voice "Fish cheeks"!

John Austin

August 2016, Santa Pola