Goatfish / Red Mullet Family
[Mullet; Family Mullidae]
Goatfish are a family of tropical and temperate marine fish. Often called "Mullet", they are a very popular eating fish in Western and Mediterranean Europe, but are little known in North America. Confusingly, they are not related to the Mullet Family.
More on Varieties of Fish (large page).
Striped Red Mullet -
[Mullus surmuletus also Mullus barbatus]
These Goatfish are found in temperate and sub tropical waters along the
Atlantic coast of Europe, in the Mediteranean, along the northwest coast
of Africa and also in the Black Sea. These are the "Red Mullet" called for
in European cookbooks, but you're unlikely to find any in North America.
They can grow to 15 inches and 2 pounds but are usually marketed at between
2-1/2 and 8 ounces. Red list status: Not Evaluated.
Details and Cooking.
Photo by Hans Hillewaert distributed under license Creative
Commons
Attribution ShareAlike 2.5.
Indian Goatfish / Red Mullet -
[Yellow Spot Goatfish, Parupeneus indicus]
This tropical Indo/Pacific Goatfish is found from the east coast of Africa to the southwest coast of Mexico and as far south as the northern coast of Australia. It adopts a number of color schemes but is often marketd in its red form as "Red Mullet". All have the round dark spot at the tail and a large yellow spot at the lateral line between the two dorsal fins - but in the red form that spot is only faintly visible.
This is a supurb eating fish, but not common here in Southern
Califronia. They can grow to nearly 18 inches but fish in my test batch
were about 12-1/2 inches long weighing 1 pound. The photo specimen is a bit
smaller because the idiots at the market had broken the tails of all the
larger fish to fit them in a foam tray that was too small - an outrage
that would never happen in the Philippine and Southeast Asian markets here.
Red list status: Not Evaluated.
Details and Cooking.
Cinnabar Goatfish -
[Cá Phèn Râu (Viet); Parupeneus heptacanthus]
This tropical Indo/Pacific Goatfish is found from the east coast of
Africa across the Pacific to the west coast of Mexico and South America.
Some are as far south as the south coast of Australia and the tip of
Africa. It adopts a number of color schemes but is often marketed in its
red form, which can be quite blotchy. Note that the barbels responsible
for the name "goatfish" can be tucked in and may not be visible. These
fish can grow to nearly 14 inches but the photo specimen was 10-3/4
inches long weighing 1l ounces. Red list status: Not Evaluated.
Details and Cooking.
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