Is frozen fish fillets much better value than chilled?

Daz2009

I find frozen fish fillets often shrink substantially after cooking .
Maybe I'm cooking them wrong or maybe they fill them full of water to increase the weight like they do with a lot of the cheaper chicken breasts

Farway

Daz2009 said:

I find frozen fish fillets often shrink substantially after cooking .
Maybe I'm cooking them wrong or maybe they fill them full of water to increase the weight like they do with a lot of the cheaper chicken breasts

Have a read of the packing, some say "water glazed" or similar, no doubt there is a reason for this, apart from paying fish prices for water

Daz2009

Farway said:

Daz2009 said:

I find frozen fish fillets often shrink substantially after cooking .
Maybe I'm cooking them wrong or maybe they fill them full of water to increase the weight like they do with a lot of the cheaper chicken breasts

Have a read of the packing, some say "water glazed" or similar, no doubt there is a reason for this, apart from paying fish prices for water

Yes I've seen water glazed on the packaging,it would seem that's common across the industry.... there's no limits to how much......but that doesn't really explain the shrinkage and I've tried many methods,steaming,in the oven,wrapped and unwrapped etc

dllive

I cant find many mentions on Google of what 'water glazing' actually is (other than photos of some very nicely designed pottery), but I did find an online publication about the glazing of frozen fish where it reads

"A water-based glaze is commonly applied to frozen seafood products to prevent surface drying and dehydration, with adequate levels of glaze reported to be 6-10%"

and 

"Overglazing could serve as a potential outlet of fraud by artificially adding weight to the product, resulting in an economic profit."

So perhaps the 400g on the packet is actually more like ~360g when cooked.

Every days a school day!

rhcp

On my Aldi ones, it says 475g (exclusive of ice glaze).

MrsStepford

Think it's mostly done on prawns. Some producers put the defrosted weight on packaging, others don't. Reading labels is essential, because water is added to chicken, pork chops nd bacon. Only way to make sure you never get added water, is either to buy organic or use a local bacon producer, butcher etc which does things the traditional way. 

fatbelly

p00hsticks said:

For those with a TV licence, watching this will probably convert you from 'fresh' to frozen .....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fw733

(The whole program from which the clip is taken is well worth a watch)

I saw that programme and haven't bought 'fresh' fish since

Vegastare

I love fish and buy both fresh and frozen... and would say Tesco frozen cod is decent (usually get Iceland) 
But yesterday my cod - fished in N E Atlantic waters off Norway suddenly caused a real jaw dropping moment......it said frozen in China.!!!!  I'm not usually glued to reading labels but it looked  thick and chunky compared to some frozen fish - so glanced at where from.
Come on Tesco....how can you explain the eco friendly miles in this!!!  
The other side of the world and back again for my dinner....ouch.

mimi1234

I like my frozen fish but have found they tend to shove a lot of tails in instead of the chunky fillets.  I do like the fresh fish you can pick but it is a lot more expensive.

MrsStepford

Pretty much all natural fish fillets from Iceland say 'Produced and Packed in China' now. No fishing waters mentioned so I'm presuming farmed and frozen. When it says 'Atlantic salmon' that DOESN'T mean it was caught in the Atlantic, it's a breed of salmon. Other supermarkets are going the China route too, just as they did with garlic. 

A lot of fresh fish is just defrosted farmed fish. I was shocked by a fishmonger at Sainsbury's. I asked him what was wild and he replied:  " None of it ". 

Much of the fish our fishermen catch isn't landed in UK.  The fish Brits prefer is often imported. It's difficult to say whether fishermen will land fish in the UK and hope that Brits will buy it,