Buying Fresh Fish
When it comes to shopping for the freshest fish, be guided by your senses. Smell, Touch and Sight are the only tools you need when buying fresh fish.
Smell: Fresh fish smells like the sea, the same beautiful fresh smell you will remember from your last trip to the seaside. If it smells fishy, then it's not as fresh as it should be and maybe you should shop elsewhere.
Touch: When you touch fresh fish the skin should be firm moist and quite slippery. Dry and crisp to the touch is a bad sign.
Sight: Look at how the fish is stored, the more ice the better. Look at the gills, they should be bright red. Scales should be firmly attached and brightly coloured. Look at the eyes of the fish. The eyes should be bright and glassy. If they are dull and starting to turn white, the fish has been out of the water too long. (Some Deepwater fish can have naturally cloudy eyes)
Buying Fresh Shellfish
Mussels: Fresh mussels smell clean, like the sea, and the shells of live mussels should be tightly closed. If the mussel is slightly open, tap the shell, and a healthy mussel will close tightly within 20 seconds. To store mussels at home, simply put them in a bowl and cover with a clean damp tea-towel. Never store mussels in water or in an airtight container, either method will kill them. Mussels should be cooked as soon as possible.
Lobster & Crab: Live crabs and lobsters should show leg movement, and the tail of lobsters should curl tightly underneath the body and not hang down when the lobster is picked up. Lobsters and crabs will not be very active if they have been refrigerated, but they should move at least a little bit. In our experience, imported lobster, such as Canadian, is an inferior product. Their shells tend to be softer and have a plastic feel when being cracked. There is little or no flavour from these lobsters.
The Secret of Buying the best Irish Beef
Over the last couple of decades the local Family Butcher has all but disappeared. Sadly to say most of us now buy our beef from supermarkets and the information passed from the family butcher to the customer is sorely missed. We have been conditioned to shop for meat that has no fat and is bright red in colour. When you visit Ouzos you will experience the melt in your mouth beef that we all long for. You will be left wondering how do they do it? What's their secret? Well its simple and we will tell you.
When we go shopping for beef we specify a number of things that must be certified by our butcher who in turn is certified by An Bord Bia. First, our Irish Beef is sourced from animals that are under 30 months of age and are fed on a grass based diet. We then select our beef which is hung and Dry-Aged for up to three weeks , it is then cryo-packed and Wet-Aged for a further two weeks. This is how we can guarantee that a steak in our restaurant will be one of the finest steaks you have ever eaten.
When you go shopping for beef, find a local butcher who will spend a little time talking to you. Ask where they buy their beef and look for the certification indicating the Irish origin of the beef. Tell the butcher what you want and how you are going to cook it and let him recommend the cut to suit.
When buying Sirloin look for a deep red wine colour with plenty of marbling. (Marbling is thin squiggly lines of fat running through the steak) Marbling is what helps make the steak tender and during cooking melts to give the steak a great flavour. Ask how long the meat has been aged. (21 to 28 days is a good answer)
