Talk:Megrim

Salted and dried Megrim.... Megrim ? idk, not absolutely sure, please help me find out the english name of the actual fish used
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In Belgium this is the most appreciated fish used for salting and drying, along with whiting they form the bulk of our dried fish consumption.

Megrim ? ("scottish dab", "schotse schar" it is called here) is appreciated for the very high fat content in it's fin muscles. The taste of these fish, when dried is uncomparable to others. However cooked or fried it's not that remarkable, hence it's only very rarely sold here for those purposes. Salting is done after gutting them, then using a hard brush to make sure there's no more "blood(1)" along the spine then putting them in a high saline content brine for a few hours (add salt to the water until your fish floats up , don't put in all your fish to test this , add 2 or 3 , then add salt.) - not dry sprinkled like cod species - , sometimes when the fish are rather thick (which is not often the case) 2 small incisions about half way the fish perpendicular to it's spine are made to make the penetration of the salt easier. Leave them in for four hours, up to one and a half hours. To avoid flies laying eggs in the inside of the area where the gut was located, one can sprinkle copious amounts of pepper in there , it helps. But always check your fish a few times a day as not to have any nasty surprises. Also, wasps will quite often tear large chunks out of the fish as well .In ideal circumstances they are dried in rather cool , very well ventilated , dark places. However, if no such places are available , a shady part of an open area will do fine. They are usually hung up using a loop knot around the tail, using hemp rope.If the knot is kept flat it will be easy to remove the fish from the rope when dried. Drying is done when pushing the meat near the spine still has some elasticity in it. It should not be dried beyond the dryness of cured ham. Cutting the fish up to eat : Don't cut off the fins on both sides, it will remove the very small fin bones from the fin , it's easier to eave them on as not to swallow them when sucking the oil from the fin muscles. First cut the fish in half lengthwise, ideally by cutting the spine in half with a heavy large knife, if you are unable to put enough force , or don't have a heavy enough knife , cutting along the spine will be fine. , placing the fish half on a table then starting at the tail side cutting down. The two halves then can be cut in smaller pieces, make sure you don't cut the smaller fish bones that are connected to the spine , as not to generate bone bits that could be swallowed. Once you have the individual bits, you will find they are easy to peel.

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Source : My parents had a fish shop on the Belgian coast, I did this quite a lot before moving out.

(1)I say blood here, but the reddish stuff along the spine isn't not really blood at all , this fish's blood is transparent. It's just easier to think about it as being blood.

Some googled pictures: http://static.skynetblogs.be/media/64621/dyn007_original_770_557_pjpeg_2580943_522a2ee04fd4098658889198479b4e6d.jpg http://static.skynetblogs.be/media/64621/dyn007_original_700_467_pjpeg_2580943_443b87617dbbff4fa14ff5764a21f474.jpg

However, I hope these pictures are enough for source material. I'm putting the addition here before adding anything to the article so you all have a chance to comment beforehand.

!! Important, Due to the fact a whole lot of people mix up fish names , the megrim may not be the fish used. Looking up pictures in google yields about a dozen different fish people call "megrim". I want to be sure the fish that I mean, the one in the pictures here , is actually what is know to the english speaking people as Megrim. Here it is called "Schotse Schar" But I have seen people give them other names, as I have seen people using the name "schotse schar" for other fish.

This: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?ID=28&genusname=Lepidorhombus&speciesname=whiffiagonis is definately not the fish used for drying ... this : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Lepidorhombus_whiffiagonis_4G.jpg/250px-Lepidorhombus_whiffiagonis_4G.jpg however I'm pretty sure is the fish we use.. Characteristic are the more flimsy fins that aren't very regular, the fact they're mostly spotless , and almost translucent when held in sunlight.

As you can see the fish is quite different when it comes to wikipedia or fishbase's picture.

This: http://www.ictioterm.es/especies/fotos_principales/L/Lepidorhombus_boscii_L.jpg Looks a lot like the fish we used for drying, notice the lack of spots on it's main body and the irregular fins.

But again, on wikipedia , it's a different fish. This fish however doesn't even have an english entry but here's the spanish one : http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidorhombus_boscii .. There are 4 spots that are suposed to be there on that species like indicated on thsi french page: http://wwz.ifremer.fr/var/storage/images/medias-ifremer/medias-peche/photos/especes-poissons/cardine-quatre-taches/411720-1-fre-FR/Cardine-quatre-taches.jpg .. the fins get larger near the tail unlike the one from the spanish site (see paragraph above this). Also those individual fin ridges look like they're closer together. And the tail fans out instead of being straight.

This is one of my pictures of the fish when drying: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schotse_Schar_Droog.jpg

Asking for help identifying which fish this is exactly is also why I have added this to the talk page before adding it to any fish's article.

Phoenixxl (talk) 09:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Cornish Sole
Megrim is now called "Cornish Sole" in the UK;

http://www.theduncowhornton.co.uk/a-sole-by-any-other-name/

Meltingpot (talk) 00:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

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