Smoked Eel

[saint-spoon]

all we can hope for is for their numbers to recover qickly.

[manda]

Wow that's a heck of a drop in numbers....I wonder what has caused it...nature or over fishing??

On the topic of the hot smoking....rather brining try a pinch of salt and pinch of brown sugar (with whatever herbs you fancy - we use a seafood mix...sometimes we use the fish mixes and use that in place of the salt with the sugar) on the flesh side...leave it for 20 minutes then pop it in the smoker....how we usually have it and cuts down the time. We do this with trout regularly.

You could make your own pastrami in that as well....

[Kernow]

all we can hope for is for their numbers to recover qickly.

Afraid it will take many years

[manda]

I found this on the net (I've been having a look around since I read this)

POSSIBLE CAUSES FOR THE DECLINE OF THE EUROPEAN EEL POPULATION

Vincent van Ginneken, Arjan Palstra, Guido van den Thillart
Integrative Zoology, Institute Biology Leiden (IBL), van der Klaauw Laboratories, POB 9516, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.

Worldwide, eel populations have been dwindling over the last decade.The exact cause for this pheno¬menon is unknown but possible causes include: PCB’s, viruses, swimbladder parasites and diminished fat stores. In order to study whether these factors had effect on the swimming performance and endurance of European eel, experiments were performed in 22 large swim-tunnels of 127 liter in the laboratory. We found that eels loaded with a known amount of PCB's had significantly lower oxygen consumption after 750-km in comparison to a control group. For swim bladder parasites a negative correlation was found between infection pressure and optimum swim speeds. Higher densities of parasites cause a decrease of maximal sustained speeds at which eels could cruise to the Sargasso. A negative correlation was also found between swim bladder length and cost of transport. Parasites cause the swimbladder to shrink resulting in higher costs of transport. Thus overall, swimbladder parasite reduces cruise capacity. EVEX (Eel-Virus-European-X), HVA (Herpesviris anguillae) and EVE (Eel Virus European) were detected in wild and farmed European eels (Anguilla anguilla) from the Netherlands, EVEX and EVE from farmed eels from Italy and EVEX from wild eels from Morocco. EVEX was also isolated from wild New Zealand eel (A. dieffenbachi). Elvers (A.anguilla) collected from eel farms in the Netherlands were mainly infected with HVA. We show in large swim tunnels that eels infected with EVEX developed hemorrhage and anemia during simulated migration, and died after 1,000-1,500 km. In contrast, virus-negative animals swam 5,500 km, the estimated distance to the spawning ground of the European eel in the Sargasso Sea. The virus-positive eels showed a decline in hematocrit, which was related to the swim distance. The virus-negative eels showed a slightly increased hematocrit. The observed changes in plasma Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Total Protein and Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) are indicative of a serious viral infection. Long term swim experiments over 5,500-km with European eel demonstrate that eels are very efficient swimmers. Diminished fat stores due to insufficient food supplies in the inland waters are possibly not impair the crossing of the Atlantic because they are very efficient swimmers with energy cost for migration 4-6 times lower than salmonids. Still, the initial lipid stores will determine how much energy remains for reproduction. Based on all these observations, we conclude that possibly not one cause but several causes affect the spawning migration of eels, and could be a contributing factor to the worldwide decline of eel populations.

This work was supported by the European Commission, project (EELREP, Q5RS-2001-01836).

Everything else I've read is pretty much the same....... talking about various causes for their decline ..not just one but they can't identify any one specific thing it seems and more importantly is the difficulty in them getting a sustainable population despite all of the efforts that have already been made.....

[saint-spoon]

quite scary really, when you have a conglomeration of causes all working together to destroy the population the future seems bleak.

Back to smoking fish, the brining thing was ok although I have yet to use it on an oily fish, the pouting fillets tasted nice ( I turned one into kedgeree this morning). I may well revert back to a sprinkle of salt and herbs rather than brining, it all seems a fuss for little change. I have been using some Chinese stock powder and coconut sugar as the seasoning until now and it has worked just fine.

[saint-spoon]

I have been using a mixture of abalone sauce (similar to Chinese oyster sauce but sweeter and milder) with Vietnamese fish sauce (not as strong as the Thai version) and Thai sweet basil and chilli stir fry sauce to marinate my salmon fillets and it is fantastic. Light soy sauce and honey with a grating of ginger is also fab. Yesterday I smoked a rack of pork ribs (son-of –morris hickory glazed) and they were absolutely delish, so much better than burning them on the barby. I will try ribs with light soy and honey marinade next time I get some.

[manda]

If you like Abalone sauce - if you haven't already you should try Paua fritters


Delicious

[saint-spoon]

Now you are teasing me Manda, they look delicious but I am afraid that I shall never have the opportunity to savour them. A can of abalone from my local Chinese supermarket is £40 and I have never seen them fresh or frozen. There are ormes down by the channel islands but they can only harvest them for a very short period each year for non-commercial use.

[chookmike]

It's all very sad really. I am surprised, though, that Manda's scientific paper didn't address the issue of the Gulf Stream or North Atlantic drift moving to the West. If this continues, and these Isles cease being affected by its warmth, then we will have the same climate as other parts of the world on the same maritime latitude, and we won't like that. I, for one, will be back in NZ, shakes and all.

I hadn't heard of all these viruses and the PCB pollution is yet one more example of our species' stupidity. This planet would be far better off without us!

Mike

[manda]

Now you are teasing me Manda, they look delicious but I am afraid that I shall never have the opportunity to savour them. A can of abalone from my local Chinese supermarket is £40 and I have never seen them fresh or frozen. There are ormes down by the channel islands but they can only harvest them for a very short period each year for non-commercial use.

Sheesh!!!! I didn't realise they were difficult to get...just had a look on the net...
http://www.thefishsociety.co.uk/shop/abalone.html 156 pounds a kilo!!!!!!

Here all you need is to be able to dive and a tape measure! You can take 10 of species (so 20 a day) and they have to be a minimum size....otherwise they're free.