Pakefield in Suffolk one of the earliest know place of human habitation a fantastic place
to live with a beach on our doorstep, plenty of room to exercise my two lurchers Bella
and Millie Pakefield historic fishing industry may have
suffered a terminal decline but this stretch of the north sea has plenty too offer while
ferreting about for a free harvest Well here we are after a busy CLA had a few
days recuperating on Pakefield beach here and I am joined here by the Shooting Times
photographer par excellence Steven Taylor and his merry wife Marie Taylor all three
of us you may remember from Field to Fork: the rabbit cooking and preparation DVD whats
now sold out and keeping with that ethos of the hunter gather and having the no worries
of where their food comes from we are going to enjoy ourselves in the seaside waters not
my cup of tea, but I do like a good net and Steve Taylor is going to show me how to catch
a few shrimps Well we are here at Pakefield beach today
and we are going to do a bit of shrimping I have heard some good reports there are plenty
of shrimp about, this is the kit very straight forward sort of thing my grandfather would
of have had on his bicycle coming down here years ago this is an improvised carp net,
its landing net, a broom handle and another bit of broom handle, couple a bit of fixing
there very very straight forward to make.
Ok we will just put this together.
Right lets go shrimping If you are thinking of going shrimping, it
would be advisable to find some sort of protection on your feet standing on a weaver fish may
dampen your enthusiasm for this fantastic way of relaxing spending time at the seaside
while catching some food in the true hunter gather style
Steve's traditional shrimp push net like my long-net needs plenty of bagging in order
to work effectively and efficiently The word was out on the beach that Steve was
catching plenty of shrimp but even after using a JCB earlier in the season to rescue a ferret
even I thought this was a bit over kill to carry his catch back
Right the guys have been working really hard to catch all the shrimps, look you can see
all the many we have got its going to be delicious and they are so easy to cook, all you need
is a pan of rapidly boiling water and most bizarrely of all you do need to add a little
bit of salt to this water even though they have come straight from the sea just add a
little bit of salt in there and that will really bring out the delicious fresh sea taste
right so water is boiling, shrimps ready to go.
I have rinsed them off in a little bit of fresh water just to get rid of some of the
sand.
And just give that a stir lid back on.
Hey Right now these are cooked they have just come up to the boil I have given them a minute
they are a lovely brown pinky colour so all I need to do now is, is just strain them off.
Strain them off and then want to do is just put them into this bowl here and these are
ready to eat Right on cue Jill's and Grace joined us on
this fantastic beach we have at Pakefield eating freshly caught and cooked shrimp whilst
enjoying the last of the summer days sunshine.