Cooking blues calls for common sense

Bluefish are known to contain PCBs and therefore have federal and state guidelines as to their consumption. This information is on page 15 of the DEP Connecticut Anglers Guide for all fish in Connecticut waters.

• High risk people are defined as nursing or pregnant mothers, women planning to become pregnant within a year or children under 6 years old. The low risk group is basically everyone else.
• Small fish are safer to eat.
• The advisory recommends that high risk groups don't eat bluefish more than 25 inches at all and that the low-risk group only eat one bluefish meal every two months.
• Bluefish between 13 and 25 inches are OK for both high- and low-risk people to eat once per month.
• Bluefish under 13 inches, "snapper bluefish," don't have warnings at all, because they are so young they haven't had time to accumulate PCBs in their tissues.
• For any species of fish that may have PCB or in the case of freshwater fish, mercury, skin and fillet all fish and cook them so that juices are drained away. This process will remove a high percentage of any contaminants that may be present.
• In the case of bluefish (and stripers), remove the strips of red muscle on their sides and skin fillets, to remove potential contaminants. By doing this they will also taste better.
• One bluefish recipe I've been told says to nail bluefish fillets, with beacon strips to an oak plank, cook upside down over an open fire, until the beacon is brown, then discard the fillet and eat the oak plank. Kidding aside, bluefish are not that bad, especially the small ones.
• Larger fish can be marinated in Italian or vinaigrette style salad dressing before grilling for a nice tasting fillet.
• Small bluefish, snappers and fish under 2 pounds are actually pretty good eating. Fillets of small bluefish can be dipped in egg and coated with Bisquick, flour or bread crumbs then baked or fried to a golden brown. [Bob Sampson, Norwich Bulletin]