Late Summer Bursting with Flavours from the Sea

From well-fed hake and plump mackerel – those black-striped bandits – to lobster, fjord shrimp, and crayfish: late summer is overflowing with delicious seafood. Plaice are in season, but prices are sky-high. Mackerel are peaking in both flavour and numbers, and fjord shrimp are bigger and tastier than at any other time of year. We’re also keeping an eye out for the first sea bass, turbot, brill, and red gurnard – and we’ll tell you why right now is the time to get the best the sea has to offer onto your menu.

Hake

The first one we need to talk about is hake!

There’s been plenty of them, and they haven’t been expensive. Fishing has been very close to shore, and the hake this year have been unbelievably well-fed. Beautiful, thick hake give a really high yield – something everyone loves. So you should definitely get hake onto the menu right now and keep them there all the way through October.

Plaice

It’s a different story with our beloved plaice!

It’s a different story with our beloved plaice! They’re in season, and they’re beautifully fat from the West Coast – but expensive! Absurdly expensive, in fact. Plaice fillet No. 2 is almost unaffordable right now. And while we’re happy to apologise on nature’s behalf, that doesn’t really help. There just aren’t that many plaice being caught these years in the North Sea – and when we say the North Sea, we mean the entire North Sea, not just the Danish waters.

It’s not unusual for plaice stocks to fluctuate a lot – we’ve mentioned this before in our Updates – but the fact that there are virtually no plaice being caught inshore in the German, Belgian, Dutch, or Danish part of the North Sea is unusual.

The reasons are many. Fishing with beam trawls and bottom trawls in vulnerable coastal habitats is certainly one of them, but the fishery isn’t solely to blame. There are also excessive discharges of nitrogen and other pollutants – which aren’t even factored into official assessments of the sea’s health, even though they are measured. Add to that seals and cormorants – both protected – that also love a good plaice.

So it’s the same culprits we keep talking about, not just fishing. The fact is you need to go far offshore to find large concentrations of plaice, and that limits fishing opportunities – whether stocks are on an upswing or a downswing. Right now, we’re in a downswing, though the species is still classified as “Least Concern” by the IUCN, the lowest threat category a species can have.

Still, this has a big impact on price because plaice isn’t just one of our own classics – it’s also a hugely popular fish in other countries fishing the North Sea, especially Germany and the Netherlands. That’s why plaice get so insanely expensive in summer, even when they’re in season.

Our advice: keep plaice on the menu through to November. They’re delicious, and we expect prices will gradually drop to a more reasonable level during August.

Mackerel

Now, let’s move on to mackerel!

The lovely trap-net mackerel took a long time to get going this year. The reason, as we mentioned last month, was that the big trap nets in Skagen were clogged with that ever-present fedtemøg (slimy algae). Unfortunately, there’s still quite a lot of fedtemøg around Skagen, but it’s improved since last time.

In early August, we’ve even been lucky enough to get some sardines in the trap nets – and if you get the chance to serve them, you really should.

Mackerel have also arrived along other Danish coasts, and you can catch them in Copenhagen Harbour and at many other spots along the coastline – if you’re the type who likes to swing a fishing rod.

August and September are the absolute peak months for mackerel – both in numbers and in quality. You won’t find better mackerel than those in August and September. They’re perfectly fatty without being too much.

So get them on the menu – the black-striped bandits!

Lobster

Lobster from the sea!

It’s no secret there are more and more lobsters along the Danish coast, and this year has been fantastic. That means there’s been a good supply at the auctions most days during the summer – despite Limfjord, where most lobsters are caught, being closed.

That’s great news for all of us who love lobster – so we recommend getting it on the menu now, so it can stay there through September, when the fjord opens again and even more lobsters come in.

Crayfish

Another member of the delicious “crawlies” gang is also in season – crayfish!

There’s a good supply of Danish crayfish right now, and we’ll have them well into October. We boil almost all of them – and we do it well! Uncle Frede has boiled more crayfish than you have, guaranteed, and he’ll be at it from Monday to Friday. So remember to order your weekend crayfish for Friday delivery – because the boilery is closed on Saturdays!

Our crayfish come from several private lakes and gravel pits, and they’re a mix of the two invasive species (spinycheek crayfish and signal crayfish) and the native European crayfish. When we have the native ones, we’re happy to sell them live – but otherwise it’s unfortunately illegal to sell live crayfish.

You can trust Uncle Frede’s skills as a boil master – he’s done it many, many times before!

Fjord shrimp

Last but not least, we have to mention fjord shrimp – which are truly at their peak right now.

Yes, you heard right: now is the best time for fjord shrimp. They’ve already spawned their next generation for the second time this year, and now all they have to do is feed and fatten up without thinking about reproduction until next spring.

That’s why they’re so big right now – and they taste better and more intense now than they do in asparagus season.

So you might think… isn’t it a shame not to have them on the menu? And the answer is: YES, IT IS!

If you don’t believe us, just order a batch and taste for yourself!

The rest of the stars

‍Other fish at their best right now and coming during the month…

It’s time for red gurnard! We can’t say for sure how many we’ll get, but we’ll buy every one we can find – even though few are caught with low-impact gear.

Turbot and brill are in top form. They’re recovering from spawning, and some may still have a little roe, but they’re still stunning. They won’t be particularly cheap, as it doesn’t look like any of the gillnetters will be making the long turbot trips to the English part of the North Sea this year – something they did extensively just a few years ago.

Those trips take about a week, and it has to be very profitable to go that far for the fish. In recent years, it hasn’t been, so the gillnetters are fishing for other species – like hake – that can be caught just a couple of hours from port.

Sea bass should also be arriving soon. Last year, there were plenty of Danish sea bass in both August and September, but we can’t say yet whether it’ll be as good this year. We recommend keeping an eye on the app – when they arrive, you’ll see them there first!

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