Chippers and Blue!

A slightly higher brow approach to Wellfleet's bastard fish.

I can still remember getting pushed out of bed by my dad before the sun was even up. We would make it from Dennis to Wellfleet before the sun eventually pushed through on those grey Cape Cod mornings. My grandfather had an old center console boat at the town landing in Wellfleet. He fished for blues & stripers for a while.

me & a striper: circa 1990-something off Cape Cod

I was pretty young when they went out, but it still is of my best memories. I can remember leaving the harbor and trucking out to sea at full speed for what seemed like forever. Eventually there was no land in sight, the water was deep and choppy. This was the point of no return, it's time to show your sea legs or you'll be turning green and praying for shore. Luckily I stood strong, as I think most Adams' were born with sea legs.

The outboard finally slowed down. The fish finder, the active birds, "boiling water" and the strange faint smell of watermelon all pointed to a feeding frenzy. We dropped our lines and started reeling them in, they kept coming. We had all sorts of lines, rod and rigs out. I know we had some reels set up with lead line and jigs, you needed a glove to fish this one. I can't recall how many we caught on this particular trip but it seemed like a hell of a lot. Those bastard bluefish liked to fight too, they didn't come in easily. The blues weren't afraid to take one last look at you in the eye before trying to bite some of your flesh off while you're lazily removing a hook.

On the way back in to Wellfleet we went around the tip of Provincetown, I got to do some diving and swimming near some sand bars. Back to business at the pier as it was time to sell the days catch before stopping at the Beachcomber. They must have known a guy because I was way too young to be in there...Anyway I guess you can say I have a soft spot for the bastard so here it is.

Chippers and Blue: Old Blighty style fried bluefish, mixed rosemary oven chippers and a fresh corn & tomato salad.


Mixed rosemary oven chippers

• Sweet potatoes & baby new's tossed in olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, sea salt and pepper roasted at 450 for a half hour. These are our new favorite chips or "chippers."

Fresh corn & tomato salad

• 3 ears of corn, kernals sliced.
  
• 3 roma tomatoes diced.
  
• Quarter of an onion diced
• Chopped basil
• Toss with sea salt, pepper and olive oil and bring up to heat on the stovetop. You don't really want to cook this, I just wanted it warm with a nice "raw" bite.

Old Blighty style fried bluefish

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup seltzer water (unshaken next time please...)
• 1 egg
• sea salt and pepper
• bluefish (or fish of choice)

Stir the batter up, get rid of those lumps. (It's probably not too late to turn this batter into pancakes.) The seltzer is suppose to give the crust a nice airy lift and a good bite which it did. Cut your FRESH bluefish into serving size pieces and dip into your batter before frying in medium high oil. The fish took around 8 minutes per side. When I'm frying battered fish I always cook by color. You're looking for a nice dark golden brown.

Plate & enjoy.

Have you seen the video yet?...

This is the first of hopefully many more video's to come for The Salted Cod. We're still working on a few things, but keep a look out for more.

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A big thanks to Oats for making our video dreams come true.

"Chippers and blue, chippers and blue!" God I couldn't stop saying that for a few days.