New Fish Species

Adding value to under-utilised fish species

The goal, is to add value to under-utilised fish species by four technologies: (i) sous vide; (ii) osmotic treatment; (iii) freeze-chilling; (iv) modified atmosphere packaging. Most focus to date has been on sous vide (i.e. mild heat processing in a vacuumised bag) cooking and seven under-utilised fish species (albacore tuna, cardinal fish, blue ling, orange roughy, redfish, roundnose grenadier and Greenland halibut) have been subjected to sous vide/freezing tests. Sous vide cooked albacore tuna had the firmest texture while samples of roundnose grenadier and Greenland halibut were deemed too soft by a sensory panel. Cook losses ranged from 18.9% (albacore tuna) to 40.7% (orange roughy) and centrifugal drip losses from 4.1% (albacore tuna) to a range of 11.6 to 18.9% for the other six species. Follow-on tests involved consumer-sized portions of albacore tuna, cardinal fish, blue ling, redfish and roundnose grenadier which were sous vide cooked with a range of 11 sauces (250 g fish: 250 g sauce). Taste panel acceptability scores for sous vide cooked fish in sauce indicated that tikka, hollandaise, arrabiata and tomato + pesto were most preferred and albacore tuna, blue ling and cardinal fish the best species.