Welcome to Easter and Passover Week.
In the seafood wholesale world, Easter has always been one of our biggest weekends. Restaurants offer huge Easter Brunch menus filled with lots of great choices from the oceans. There are many restaurants offering takeaway meals and feasts for the holiday and we urge you to help them out as much as you can. But...if you would rather have the feast of your own making, we are the guys to go to! This week we have quite a few great offerings for you.
Lobsters:
This week we are offering two sizes to choose from, the 1.25# that we have had every week since we started and we have added 1.5# for those that need just a tad more of this tasty crustacean. You may have noticed a large jump in price this week, there are a few factors in play here that have caused this spike. The first being that Asia is once again taking imports and China especially loves lobsters. China typically takes about 2 million pounds of live lobsters per month. That's a lot of lobsters!! They are not taking that many now, but high winds and bad weather have kept boats in, which is adding to the problem. Low supply coupled with higher demand and price goes up. Our lobsters are coming to us from Maine and Nova Scotia. According to one of our suppliers, they predict prices will remain high until mid to late May. We will continue to feature them as they have been a decent seller every week.
Maryland Crabmeat:
The Maryland season has finally started, and though most picking houses remain closed due to lack of labor, there are a couple of them picking for us right now. This is first of the season fresh jumbo lump and lump and boy is this stuff great!! Pricing is also a bit high on these, but as the season progresses and once the labor issues are resolved prices will come down. Fresh picked Maryland crabmeat is one of the best products we sell, we take calls every year wondering when the season will start and if they are predicting a good or bad year for crabs. This year looks to be a good one, once you've tried it you may never go back to any other blue crab meat. We were also offering fresh Venezuelan Crabmeat, but the plane out of Venezuela was canceled. We do have fresh Columbian Jumbo lump that we are offering at the same price as the Venezuelan. Venezuelan Lump is not available.
Mahi Mahi:
Mahi is back again this week after a couple of weeks layoff. This was popular the first time around, and we expect more of the same this week. These fish are coming to us from Ecuador, FAO 87 (World Food and Agriculture Organization Major Fishing Areas) which encompasses the Pacific Coast of South America. The fishers are using handheld fishing lines for the Mahi. They swim in schools and are very fast swimmers. Once hooked the fish tend to swim with the line making them fairly easy to land onto the boat. We send the Mahi skin off with bloodline removed. Mahi is great grilled, baked and makes for amazing fish tacos.
Swordfish
: Also back on this week is some beautiful Marker Swordfish, a marker is a swordfish that come in at over 100 lbs. At ProFish we prefer to buy only markers as they have had more opportunity to spawn and stay on a sustainable path. These fish are also from Ecuador, landed in the Port of Guayaquil and caught with longlines. They too are from FAO 87. Swordfish will be skin off, bloodline removed and is also great on the grill, makes for a terrific fish sandwich and is this fishmongers favorite fish!!
Stone Crab Claws:
Fresh from Florida are stone crab claws, we have two sizes available, medium and large. The mediums are roughly 5-7 pieces per pound and the large have 3-5 pieces per pound. If you've ever been to Florida in the winter you have run into these at one of your favorite restaurants down there, they are that popular. When crabbing, the crabbers are allowed to take 1 claw per crab, which regenerates and grows back, making stone crab claws one of the most sustainable seafood items in the world. These come to you pre-cooked as they are cooked on the boats at the time of harvesting, and best served chilled with either cocktail or remoulade sauce as an accompaniment. These are priced at $12.99/lb for mediums and $24.99/lb for large. Order early as they are very popular and are flying out the door.
Chilean Sea Bass:
Patagonia Toothfish, better known as Chilean Sea Bass makes its first appearance on our weekly offerings this week. It is also our most expensive fish we have offered, but also a very popular choice. Chilean Sea Bass has a fabulous taste and an almost sinful mouth-feel. Its high-fat content keeps it moist during cooking and gives it a rich, moist, tender flavor profile that melts in your mouth. It has white flesh with large, tender flakes. These fish are MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified for best practices for sustainability. This is a fish that would make any Easter dinner stand out!
Shrimp, Salmon, Cod, Scallops, and Halibut remain on the weekly offerings due to high demand and many requests.
Our pasta this week include a couple of newer and less expensive choices:
Maui & Vidalia Onion Ravioli:
Maui and Vidalia Style onions blended with Alderwood infused Cannellini beans with New potatoes, Fresh Chives & Roasted Garlic. Tastes great with grilled vegetables and proteins as well. Packed in 120 count cases, this is one of our more popular Ravioli's.
Black Linguini:
Gorgeous flat calamari ink pasta that doesn’t lose its color when cooked. Perfect with seafood.
Portobella Mushroom with Porcini and Vegan Wheat-Free Gnocci remain.
The smoked fish from Ivy City Smokehouse along with the ever-popular wings and Zoe's bacon are on there once again. These will not change and more products will be added in the weeks to come.
