Author: USFA

Sydney sashimi – Alex Taffs

You will need some boned and skinned fillets of bonito (or your choice of fish)
Wrap fish pieces tightly in glad wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours this helps to firm and set the flesh
Remove fish from glad wrap and slice thinly across the grain (I like 2-3mm thick)
Arrange the sliced fish appealing to the eye on your choice of platter
Add a generous blob of wasabi
Add a neat twirl of pickled ginger
A bowl of 75% ketchup manis and 25% soy sauce mixed
Some fresh herbs as garnish
Enjoy with a ice cold beer or white wine on a hot day – Sydney sashimi at its best.

Thai Fish Cakes – Matt Poulton

 600gms of fish
 1 egg
 2Tbsp red curry paste
 2Tbsp fish sauce
 Small bunch or coriander
 1tsp brown sugar
 3 or 4 kaffir lime leaves sliced finely
 3 spring onions sliced

Combine all ingredients except spring onions in food processor until smooth.

Mix in spring onions.

Form into cakes with wet hands and drop into hot oil.

So easy and so tasty.

 

Fish with Creamy Green Peppercorn Sauce – Matt Poulton

 Recipe is very simple
 half a small tub of cream
 half a can of green peppercorns squashed roughly with a fork and add a pinch of salt
 gently heat in pan
 done

Meant to be even better with some butter added. Gently heat in pan. Done

I often make it in the same pan as was used to cook the fish or venison so you get some added flavour.

Mud crab pasta perfection – Chi Lo

 Sweat 3 anchovies in good quality olive oil
 Add 6 chopped cloves of garlic
 handful of cherry toms and a red chili, salt and pepper to taste
 Add cooked pasta plus flaked crab meat and parsley.

Blue Swimmer Crab Linguine – Andy Wilson

Ingedients:

• 2 cloves of Garlic
• 1 Medium Chilli chpped minus the seeds
• 3 Tablespoons of Chopped Parsely
• 6 Tablespoons of good Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 350gms Linguine
• 4 Blue Swimmer Crabs boiled for 8-10mins in salt water
• Salt and Pepper

 

1. Cook the crabs and pick all the meat out of them and place in a bowl. I left the meat in the claws but its not essential.
2. Chop the Garlic, Chilli and Parsely
3. When the pasta is almost al dente warm a pan and put 6 tablespoons of olive oil in.
4. Once warm place in the garlic and chilli in and infuse the flavours into the oil.
5. After a minute or so throw in the Parsely and Crab meat plus any juices from the crab meat. Mix the whole lot while warming it. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Pasta should be done now. Drain and place in a bowl.
7. Add the crab and mix it through.
8. A generous pour of olive oil on top. Sprinkle some fresh parsely in and squeeze a half lemon over the lot.

 

Enjoy!

Hot Smoked Fish – Chi Lo

This recipe would be applicable for any nice oily fish: Mullet, Tailor, Kingy, Trev and many more.

In a tub mix:
 1L of water
 1/4 cup of soya sauce
 1/4 cup (brown or caster) sugar
 1/4 cup salt
Add any aromatics you feel like eg. Coriander seeds, pepper, fennel seeds, bay leaves, garlic cloves or chili. Ensure salt and sugar are dissolved.

Take a nice chunk/fillet of skinned fish and trim any bloodline off.

Brine the fish in the fridge for about 4 hours, ensuring it’s submerged.

Remove the fish from the fridge, pat dry with kitchen paper and lay on a cake rack above a plate in the fridge overnight. The purpose of this is to dry the surface of the fillet out. This forms a great protective layer that the smoke can permeate, but also keeps the moisture inside the fillet. When you remove it from the fridge it will have a slightly tacky surface and a nice sheen.

Set up your smoker – I use a foil lined wok with a round cake rack and a lid. I place this on a camp burner on moderate heat.

Use any wood you like (I used mesquite). I recommend using sawdust to ensure a lot of smoke quickly, given the short smoking period.

Smoke for 10 minutes for a thin fillet, 15-20 for a thick chunk (eg. kingy).

The fillet will be a beautiful mahogany colour and should be beautifully juicy inside. It took me some tries to refine the quantities in the brine so it’s not too salty, not too sweet. The drying out process overnight really helped the overall product for me.

Smoked fish can be used in a number of ways and keeps for quite awhile if you have a vac packer. Some ways of use would be smoked fish dip, thai betel leaves, smoked fish sandwiches, smoked fish and eggs, croquettes (as a substitute for spanish salted cod) and even smoked fishcakes.