I am not that keen on butterfish but I have found something that is pretty tasty and felt like sharing. It is an Al Brown recipe from his book "Go Fish" based on the Gurnard Escabeche Bruschetta (Page 144). Given my southern origins I am renaming it Greenbone Escabeche Bruschetta, which only involves substituting the gurnard with greenbone!

It involves marinating the cooked fish in a flavour-rich mixture of extra virgin olive oil, star anise, saffron, red onion, garlic, chilli, orange zest, lemon juice, orange juice, honey and sherry vinegar. Eaten the next day at room temperature on some homemade bruschetta (oven baked bread 175degC for 10 minutes, with a fine spray of oil on it).

Bon apetit!

So if its butterfish do you marinate it for 24 hours, throw it out and eat the dish you had it all in on the bruschetta?? Gotta taste better than the greenbone itself....

I guess if it were a commercial product it might be sold as:

What's not to hate?
God know's I have just about tried to every way of cooking / flavouring them known to man (apart from this recipie that is) and I still cant find a way to get the family to eat the stuff.      

Do they taste different down south, or is it that over winter that's almost all you get, so you have tricked yourselves into liking them?

NI butters are sad, sick looking things, I wouldnt eat one either.  SI butters are virtually a different fish, my family loves them. I don't eat many myself these day though, prefer cray, scollies and trumps... However back on thread, that dish looks awesome and I'm going to give it a go.

Mate of mine gave me a good recipe for Butt-fish on the weekend. He reckons to split a slab (leaf?) of bull kelp and put the fish inside, then the whole lot on the barbie and fry the hell out of it. Tastes like fishy veggies or veggie-fish… Actually he made it sound really yummy and says the fish gets infused with a really nice flavour. Will try it next time, nothing to loose

Butters and blue cod are very average once you get above the waist of the NI. The conditions south of the NI's waist produce better quality spcimens of those two fish.

I agree, that Butterfish tastes better, having moved down to Oamaru about 18 months ago. I've aways liked them though. My sister, from South Africa was here recently, and prepared fillets for my 60th birthday dinner, after we speared them at Moeraki earlier the day:
Layer an oven pan with the fillets, sprinkle them lightly with Moraccan spice, add a little bit of cream or yoghurt, cover with Parmesan cheese, dry or fresh. Grill for about 7 minutes at 180C. Done, quicksticks!
Growing up, in RSA, we used to stick abalone or crayfish in kelp, plug up the end with more kelp to seal, make a fire in the beach, and after it is burnt out, bury the stuffed kelp in a bed of coals, leave for about 30mins, in the case of Paua/Perlemoen/Abalone. Remove and enjoy.

_Jimmy_ wrote: ]gets a thumbs up from me, looks the goods.   i wouldn't consider doing it with gurnard though, now that is a brilliant fish to eat.  #1 in my book and would only fry it.  butters i recon have to be treated well, gutted in the water, on salt ice immediately once in the boat.  left a day then filleted.

i normally drop them off at the dump on the way home saves filleting . unless i failed at shooting something else