I remember successfully buying and cooking a frigate-like fish in Asia. There was so much of it that I remember making a cake, a proper cake with dough on top and bottom. And then I moved to the Middle East, where fish almost never seemed to be for sale, and consequently I forgot what I used to do with it!

Melva is the Spanish name for a fish that looks like a small tuna. It is a blue fish, a blue fish, which has other names, such as frigate mackerel. The characteristic that puzzles many people when they first prepare it is that its raw meat is exceptionally bloody. So when the opportunity to buy a frigatebird through the Mercadona fish market presented itself to me again, I decided to look for my old notes and this time I was right. The last time I bought one I cooked it conventionally and made a complete mess of it. Fish blood, if cooked in the usual way, is bitter, which is why there are few oily fish-based broths. When I searched for help on the internet, I found the much-maligned frigatebird described as cheap and to be avoided. But there is a simple method to transform it into an absolutely excellent ingredient.

I was determined to rediscover my old method. When I see a way to save a few euros I am always persistent. This time the result was so good that I am determined to write an entire cookbook on things to do with your frigate. And this is the beginning of the project.

First of all, prepare your fish. My last example weighed just under a kilo and cost me three euros. Here are the steps.

One: Remove the head and discard it. There are no useful stocks here.

Two: Clean the fish and remove the fins.

Three: This is where the process differs for most fish. Wash the fish well in a bowl with cold water. There will be clumps of clotted blood along the spine. scrape them off Disrupt the lining of the internal cavity and gently run your thumb along the spine to dislodge as much blood as possible. It will only take a minute or two. Discard the water and refill the container with fresh, cold water.

Four: fillet the fish in the usual way. Discard the spine.

Five: Lay the fillets on a board skin side down and run your finger across the center of each to locate the bones. Remove them, along with any remaining ribs, any bony part of the gill fin, and especially the bony part just to the rear of the pectoral fins.

Six: Skin the fillets as usual and cut in two along the bone line. Wash these four pieces again in cold water.

Seventh: Cut the fish into pieces and put them in a bowl with a pinch of salt and the juice of a lemon. Stir and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Eight: And this is where this preparation is quite different from other methods. Drain the fish and fry it for a minute or so in hot oil. Before cooking the fish has turned greyish. After this brief firing, it has turned whitish with brown edges.

You now have about eight hundred grams of fish that can be used as an ingredient. It can be used as it is in salads, for example, but these are the three things I did with my tuna.

A mayonnaise melva sandwich sounds trivial. It is. It is also excellent. Just add a lettuce leaf and a slice or two of tomato. Spread some mayonnaise on your bread and cut up one of the fish pieces to complete the sandwich.

A frigate fish curry is almost as good as one made with kingfish, and it costs a lot less! Sauté a chopped medium onion with two or three centimeters of chopped ginger and four or crushed garlic cloves. When they’re soft, add your own favorite curry mix to the level of spiciness you want, but add plenty of paprika for color. Add a couple of chopped tomatoes and cook this mixture until the tomatoes fall into a sauce. Then lower the heat and add some whipped yoghurt or coconut milk if you want a Malaysian style dish. Let the sauce cook until the top looks oily and then add a few pieces of frigate fritters. Heat the fish, check the seasoning, and add some chopped green herbs if you like.

Seafood soup noodles become a main course with a couple of pieces of frigate fritters. Grab a packet of Asian-style seafood noodles. Yes, the prepackaged varieties work just fine. Prepare the soup for the noodles in the usual way with the seasoning provided. Add the noodles and loosen them. Add a few pieces of sliced ​​frigate fritters, and then a handful of finely chopped lettuce leaves. And that is! It’s even more substantial if you add an egg at the beginning to make an egg flower soup, and the dish is even better with the help of a chopped dried chili, but it will be spicy! And of course you can experiment with a drop of oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, etc. Any green leaf can be used in place of the lettuce, but something tougher should be added at the beginning and allowed to simmer for a minute before continuing.

So there was my melva. One fish made seven full servings and cost only three euros. And the dishes themselves, especially the curry, were excellent.