Scale models

Ever-growing demand for wild fish coupled with rapidly dwindling stocks means putting fish on the menu is beset with price and supply problems. It becomes a seller's market with prices creeping ever upwards.

Fish farming is promoted as a solution to the problem, with salmon the most widely touted example of how efficient farming methods remove pressure on wild stock and offer fish at a fairly low and consistent price. Farmed salmon and trout are relatively cheap, and sea bass farming has brought down the restaurant favourite's price. But new-generation farmed fish - cod, turbot and halibut - is not cheap, and fish farmers are determined not to make the same mistake with farmed cod that they made with farmed salmon - flooding the market with high volumes and depressing the price.

If the menu is not price-sensitive, there is still enough turbot and Dover sole available, but for the overwhelming majority of chefs for whom these are the stuff of table-top recipe books, the price of fish is a daily problem. There is no perfect answer, but a growing number of chefs are dealing with the problem through better buying and use of fish.

Philosophy
David Watson is best known for his time as head chef at Pool Court in Yorkshire, where he held a Michelin star in the 1990s. Last year he opened the Wagon, his own restaurant, converted from a run-down pub near Rochdale, north of Manchester. The menu philosophy at the Wagon is to offer interesting food, fresh ingredients throughout, with a strong accent on fish and menu prices not much higher than at chain restaurants locked into frozen food and formulaic menus. That is, at first glance, not so much a challenge as an impossibility.

Watson's answer to offering fish on the menu at affordable prices is to go to market and buy it himself. At nearby Bury fish market, he talks to fishmongers to find out the best quality at the right price. "I never know what fish of the day in the restaurant is going to be until I'm in the market," he says. "There are always deals. When you're buying from a wholesaler you might order plaice fillets and not know that suddenly lemon sole is cheaper that day, or that cheap deals the fish man has made aren't passed on to the restaurant."

Staff restaurants have a particularly tough time in juggling the demand for fish with the price at which it has to go on the menu, but again it's a matter of smarter buying. Alistair Culpan is head chef in the staff restaurant of pharmaceuticals giant Astra-Zeneca in Cheshire, where demand for fish at lunchtime is so strong it has to be on the menu every day. His approach to the problem has been to encourage his fish supplier to phone him regularly with deals of the day.

"We've had some terrific deals doing it like this," Culpan says. "There'll suddenly be a glut on the market and the price of a fish will come right down. We have a tight food-cost budget, but buying this way we've had hake and halibut on the menu for not much more than the price of cod.

"We've had a problem recently with plaice fillets being small so that you have to put two on a plate to make a portion and that blows the food cost. Then the merchant said lemon soles were coming cheaper so we switched from plaice to lemon sole. The customers got something special and we saved money."

Culpan will often specify portions of white fish rather a particular type, and leave it to his fish merchant to choose the best deal of the day. An even neater trick is to buy a box of mixed fish trimmings. "When kitchens are ordering set portion sizes of a fish it always leaves the supplier with top-quality trimmings," he explains. "Our fish supplier mixes them in a box and we use them for fish pies, kebabs or fish casseroles. It's amazing what you can get for a very good price."

Customers are more relaxed about higher menu prices for fish dishes in the evening. But many expect portion sizes and ingredients to be the same for lunchtime specials and set-price deals as on the evening menu.

To solve the problem of offering fish on the menu at a lunchtime special price, Steven Doherty, chef-proprietor of the Punch Bowl at Crosthwaite in Cumbria, will take an expensive cut of fish but extend it by using other ingredients so as to use a smaller portion. Typical of this would be a modern-style salad ni‡oise, with just a few ounces of grilled fresh tuna on crushed potatoes.

Small whole plaice cooked on the bone is another way Doherty achieves plate cover with a popular fish which, bought as fillets, is increasingly expensive. His fish supplier trims them and Doherty serves them on the lunchtime menu simply pan-fried with lemon butter and capers. Smoked haddock is another popular lunchtime fish which is served in several ways, but as a component in a dish such as cullen skink rather than centre of plate. Traditional cheaper fish such as coalfish or mackerel will never sell with their humble image, Doherty says, but unusual fish like red bream will. He is currently buying red bream fillets from his fish supplier for about £3.

Extension
Recipe extension is a not a term many chefs would use, but it's fairly common with fish. It means using a smaller amount of fish in a dish, which is wet, sauced or extended with vegetables. One of the simplest and popular recipe extensions of fish is fish cakes.

The North Wales-based pub-restaurant chain Brunning and Pryce is so renowned for its fish cakes that chef support manager Mike Carney admits it is the biggest selling menu item in the company's 11 pubs. "We began offering fish cakes about eight years ago when the price of fish wasn't the issue it is today," he says. "We base the recipe on freshness and quality of ingredients. Each unit makes its own every day and they just fly off the menus. We have a basic company recipe, but each chef tweaks his own. Our two main ones are smoked haddock fish cakes and salmon fish cakes and we serve them simply with a tomato and spring onion salad and lemon mayonnaise."

The popularity of fish cakes is, Carney explains, because they're not a food fashion-driven item. "Fish cakes are something everyone can like, but they're seldom made in the home. We can offer a main course at around £7 based on really good fish cakes."