How to Choose Fresh Fish

A fish is fresh when its eye is rounded and bright, when the body is firm, almost stiff, and leaves no imprint when you touch it, and if its scales are close-fitting.

Do not buy fish if it has too pungent an odour; if the scales come off easily; if the eye is sunken in its socket; if the fish droops lazily over the counter; if the area over the stomach or around the vent is green or blackish in colour.

In choosing cut fish such as cod, halibut or salmon, the flesh should have a firm appearance with a close grain. If it looks fibrous and watery, it has been held in storage for too long.