Your Online Guide To Buying
Fresh Fish

Buying fresh fish is the key to cooking flavoursome healthy fish dishes and this guide will hopefully make it easier for you to find, and buy the best quality fish that's available to you.

The key things to look out for when buying fresh fish begin the moment you enter the place where you buy your fish; be it your local supermarket's fish counter, your local fishmonger or fish market.

The fish counter should smell of nothing but the sea, no strong fishy smells and should be clean neat and tidy; strong fishy smells are the sign of old fish that is starting to break down.

Because fish is perishable it should always be kept on ice at zero degrees temperature. Fish can stay in a fresh condition like this for about a week after it has been caught.

Ask your fishmonger how fresh the fish is; ask when and where it was caught, he or she won't mind you asking if their fish is fresh.



Fresh fish will have bulging eyes that are bright and glassy in appearance: avoid tired old fish that have sunken cloudy eyes.

Check out the fish's scales they should be bright and colourful, old fish's scales start to look dull as they deteriorate.

The fishmonger may have already removed the fish's gills but if he hasn't pick up the fish and check them out, if the fish is fresh they will be bright crimson in colour.

A fish's flesh is also a good indicator of freshness. When you press a fish's flesh it should be firm, and as you stop pressing it, it shouldn't leave an indentation. Also fresh fish will have a healthy coating of fresh-smelling slime.

Checking the freshness and firmness of filleted fish is also important because less trustworthy fishmongers may fillet the fish when it's eyes and gills begin to give the tell tale signs that it's no longer fresh.

When you get your fish home it's important to keep it refrigerated and use it within a day or two.

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Online guide to buying fresh fish