Fish sausages, octopus chorizo and anchovy sobrasada might sound a little unusual, but they’re all part of the menu of ideas coming out of Bestia Marina in Garachico.
Chef Omar Páez has been showcasing his take on marine charcuterie at this week’s Gastronomic Forum in Barcelona, demonstrating how techniques traditionally used for meat products can be adapted to fish and seafood.
The results include anchovy and sun-dried tomato sobrasada, octopus chorizo, fish sausages and even grouper guanciale.
It’s certainly not your usual fish counter selection.
Turning fish leftovers into something useful
The idea began with a fairly practical problem: how to make better use of parts of the fish that would normally be discarded during preparation.
Around 2013, Páez discovered a way to reuse octopus heads to make sobrasada. That first experiment eventually developed into a collection of more than 100 different marine charcuterie products.
By applying curing and preparation methods normally associated with traditional charcuterie, he has found new ways to use seafood while creating something quite different from the usual restaurant offering.
Some customers initially regarded the creations as the slightly mad ideas of a chef. Fair enough, perhaps. But once people started tasting them, opinions changed.
The anchovy and tomato sobrasada has become one of the most popular choices, giving a familiar charcuterie format a distinctly marine twist.
There has also been interest from international markets looking at the possibility of commercialising these products. Páez, however, remains more interested in developing them for restaurant kitchens.
A wider movement towards seafood charcuterie
Bestia Marina isn’t the only business exploring the idea.
Barcelona-based Fishology, co-founded by chef Ricardo Radice, is also adapting traditional preservation techniques to seafood.
The reasoning is much the same. Fish heads, tails and skin can account for up to 60% of the total weight of a fish, so finding ways to use these parts makes good sense.
Fishology has developed products including seafood sausages and mortadella, using processes inspired by meat charcuterie. Some look remarkably like their traditional counterparts, although the flavour is very much their own.
These ideas are beginning to move beyond professional kitchens and into retail, as interest in seafood charcuterie grows.
The Gastronomic Forum provides a useful platform for chefs and producers to exchange ideas, experiment with ingredients and find more sustainable ways of working.
And Garachico is making sure Tenerife has a place in that conversation, with Omar Páez showing that there’s rather more you can do with a fish than simply put it on the grill.