Food from iceland

[lil-minx92]

When I say "food from Iceland", I'm afraid I'm not talking about the culinary delights of Reykjavic, but about buying food from that rather downmarket high street Frozen Food chain!

 

I'm a bit scathing about most of the stuff Iceland sell - all that processed crap in batter and breadcrumbs, all those tasteless ready meals, with tasteless bits of stuff in glutinous, artificial-tasting sauces - but I have to admit that you really can't beat them for frozen fish and seafood!

 

I'd love to be able to always afford to buy "wild" fish from a proper fishmonger, but apart from the occasional treat, I have to stick to the frozen and chilled "farmed" stuff from supermarkets and I must confess that Iceland beat them all, both on taste and price. I've been a fan of their frozen salmon portions for quite a while and from their new range of more expensive speciality fish, I have been really impressed by their Swordfish Fillets, Blue Shark fillets and Raw Prawns.... and their Salt and Pepper Squid is absolutely delicious! . I haven't tried their scallops or sea bass fillets yet - they are a bit too expensive, even at Iceland prices... but I'm quite impressed so far.

 

I agree the salt and pepper squid is delish! I make a hot sweet chilli sauce to finish it in. I love scallops but bought some frozen ones once (not from Iceland) and they were all gritty. Haven't bothered since. I guess they were dredged which must fill them with grit. The Chinese supermarkets are also good for frozen fish

[rodellis]

their chicken joints are delicious

[FIRETHORN1]

I finally tried the Iceland scallops, but I was disappointed with them. There was nothing at all unpleasant about them, but they were pretty bland and unimpressive. I pan-fried them with a bit of bacon, but they were just rubbery blobs of nothingness, which tasted faintly sweet, but had no flavour at all, other than of the bacon that I cooked them with. They were bloody expensive too and not at all worth it. They reminded me of tofu, in both tastelessness and texture - so if I ever again want to eat something white and rubbery, that tastes of nothing apart from the slightly absorbed flavours of the other ingredients it's been cooked with, I'll stick to tofu instead - it's about 90% cheaper!

[medusa]

I'm afraid I will no longer buy standard scallops without knowing how they were caught. The absolute devastation that the dredgers cause to the sea floor is not worth me having two mouthfuls of (potentially very underwhelming, as you have said) seafood.

 

I've found that larger hand collected scallops, although more expensive, tend to taste better, so if I can't guarantee the fishing methods I won't buy scallops at all now.