Red rock cod, bacon, fermented chilli stir fry (serves 2)

Recipe thanks to Chef Jai Gibbons


Ingredients

  • 1 red rock cod, filleted and diced
  • 2 rashers of bacon diced
  • 1-2 tablespoons of fermented chilli bean paste
  • 1 knob of ginger finely grated
  • 1 tin water chestnuts, quartered
  • 1 bunch shallots cut into 1 inch batons
  • 1 bunch of coriander
  • 100g firm tofu cut into 2cm x 1cm chunks
  • 2 sticks of celery sliced into half moons
  • 100g flour
  • 2 tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds
  • Salt
  • White pepper
  • 30ml Shaoxing wine
  • 150mls veg oil
  • Jasmine rice
  • abalone (optional) and if you can find one

 

Method

 

Fish / veg

Heat a wok to a high heat with 120mls of veg oil. Mix diced fish with flour and shake excess off, quickly fry in the hot oil in batches until golden and 50% cooked. Remove from wok and let it drain on paper towel. Remove most of the oil from the wok and quickly cook celery, water chestnuts and shallots for a few minutes while tossing on a high heat. You want them to have just started to cook but still be crunchy. Remove from the wok and set aside in a bowl.

Abalone

Give your abalone a wash and a bit of a scrub/rub to remove any dirt or sand. Put a heavy based pan on the lowest your burner/stovetop can go and add a tiny bit of oil place the whole abalone in flesh side down and let it cook for between 20-30 minutes. It should only lightly colour. Turn the heat off and let the abalone rest and relax. Remove the abalone from the shell and remove the guts. Cut the abalone into 3mm batons.

Stir fry

Heat the wok to a medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil, add diced bacon and cook until the fat has rendered, add the ginger and cook for about 1 minute until fragrant. Add the Shaoxing wine and reduce by half. Add the fermented chilli paste and cook out for a few minutes add a pinch of white pepper. Then add about 40mls of water to the sauce and stir until combined. add the fish back to the wok, toss the fish to coat with the sauce then add the vegetables and abalone(optional) back in and toss until the sauce coats everything and it is nice and hot. Garnish with coriander and sesame seeds and serve with some steamed jasmine rice.


Crispy skin blue morwong, lemon butter sauce and roasted fennel (serves 2)

Thanks Chef Jai Gibbons

Ingredients

  • 1 medium sized blue morwong, scaled, filleted skin on, pin boned.
  • 80g butter unsalted
  • 2 heads of fennel
  • 1 small lemon (zested and kept for fennel)
  • 1/2 bunch of chives finely sliced
  • 30ml olive oil
  • 50ml white wine (optional)
  • 30ml veg oil
  • Fennel seeds
  • Tablespoon of flour.
  • salt

Method

Fennel

Cut each head of fennel in half length ways and each half into 3 wedges and lay them in a baking dish, add white wine, olive oil, salt, lemon zest and fennel seeds over the top of the fennel. Cover with foil and bake for about 15 minutes on 180c. Remove the foil and continue to bake them until coloured on top and the fennel is tender.

Fish sauce

Preheat a heavy based pan or cast iron pan to a high heat. Lightly season your portions of blue morwong with salt and coat the skin with flour, dust off any excess flour and add the veg oil to the pan. Place the morwong skin side down into the pan and apply a light pressure on the back of the fish with a fish flip/spatula. Reduce the heat to a medium heat and continue to cook until the skin becomes golden and the fish is about 70% cooked. Add 1 tablespoon of butter to the pan and the flip the fish and baste with the butter until the skin looks delicious and crisp. Remove the fish from the pan and place on your serving dish or plate.

Add the remaining butter to the pan and cook until the butter is foaming and just starting to colour. Squeeze the lemon juice into the butter and remove from the heat. Add the chives and about 30-50mls of water to the pan and swirl the pan until the sauce thickens slightly.

Spoon the sauce onto the plate with the fish but not over the skin as it will make it less crisp.

Serve with the roasted fennel and a light salad. Rocket would go nicely.

Leather jacket satay, spicy peanut sauce (SERVES 2)

Thanks Chef Jai Gibbons


Ingredients-

4 medium sized leatherjackets cut into strips and put onto skewers

For marinade

  • 1 tablespoon Sunflower Oil
  • 1 Garlic Clove (crushed)
  • 1 Long Red Chillies (chopped)
  • 1 tsp White Pepper (ground)
  • 1 tablespoon Ground Coriander Seeds
  • 1 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon Ground Cumin
  • 1 tsp Shrimp Paste or fish sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)

For sauce

  • 1 tablespoon Peanut Oil
  • 1 Garlic Clove (crushed)
  • 1 Asian Eschalot (red, finely chopped)
  • 2 Small Red Chillies (thinly sliced)
  • ¼ cup Smooth Peanut Butter
  • ½ cup Light Coconut Milk
  • 2 tablespoons Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
  • 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
  • 50g Unsalted Roasted Peanuts (crushed)½ Lime

Marinade Method

Heat all ingredients in the marinade list, in a wok or small pot for about 5-8 minutes on a medium heat until fragrant and slightly thick, remove from the wok or pot. Let cool and coat the leatherjacket skewers with marinade.

Spicy peanut sauce-

for the spicy peanut dipping sauce, heat oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic, eschalot and chilli, and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until softened. Add peanut butter, coconut milk, kecap manis, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and a pinch of salt. Reduce heat and gently simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes until the ingredients are combined. Add crushed peanuts, lime juice and 1/4 cup (125ml) water, then return to a simmer and cook for a further 2 minutes until reduced slightly. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Grill skewers of leatherjacket, serve with spicy peanut sauce over the top or as a dipping sauce, serve with steamed jasmine rice and Asian greens.



VALE GEORGE DAVIES BEM PIONEER SPEARFISHER

Athol Bryan ( George) Davies was born on the 17 th May 1923 and left us on 5 th June 2019 at the age of 96.

George could rightly be described as the father of Spearfishing in Australia. George’s interest in spearfishing began when the July 1939 issue of “Popular Science” magazine contained an article
“Human Submarine Shoots Fish with Arrows” and a lifelong passion for the sport of spearfishing was aroused.

At this time there was no equipment available and George found himself experimenting with homemade equipment designs. Face masks were made from a piece of oval glass and rubber cut from car tyre tubes. Continue reading VALE GEORGE DAVIES BEM PIONEER SPEARFISHER

Alliman Shield 2017 – November – Watsons Bay

It dawned a dark, rainy day on the morning of the competition and then The Gap was checked to see the conditions outside the seas looked like a washing machine!

But as the divers gathered the safety boat went out and came back the competition was on! The safety talk was conducted and the roll call and the divers went out for the days diving. The harbour turned out to be surprisingly clear with a lot of fish about. Both Shark Island and Sow & Pigs Reef had excellent conditions. But outside the harbour the conditions were rough and sloppy and challenging to spearfish in.

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The competition finished at 1:15pm and all competitors were back in time, some interesting fish came in like Parry Gryllis’s blue bar parrotfish, Phil Sheppard’s spinefoot. Phil also got a huge silver drummer of over nine kilograms. The weigh in went smoothly and some of the tourists that hung about were rewarded with a fish or two, good public relations!
When the score were done it was SSD Derrick Cruz who took out the day with 699pts and Matt Poulton coming fourth with 419pts which has them level pegging at first going into the final round. The last competition is on December the 3 rd at Gunnamatta Bay, Cronulla. A BBQ and drinks will be on after the competition and all are welcome.

Lee Dalli
President
Metropolitan Spearfishing Zone

Scores are missing October results and will be updated soon.

2017 South Coast Mighty Bonanza

I guess when I first heard about this massive, huge, big money fishing comp I was a bit ““oh yeah” line fishing, so what?!?”  I was surprised that there was going to be a spearfishing event, I pricked my ears and I liked the phrases I was hearing “great for the community…educate the growing spearfishing community on safety…getting all kinds of rec fishers together…family weekend away during school holidays…. the council is right behind this…Fisheries love it….” then Adam Martin who seems to run the beautiful township of Tomakin on one hours sleep a week, contacts the USFA and asks if they would be interested in “running” the spearing side of the event on the Tomakin Fishing Clubs behalf. How could you say no!

After a couple of months of brain storming back and forth between many spearos and fishos it was decided to run a true pairs event, that is, two divers spearfishing together that sees one spearfisher diving while his pair dive buddy remains on the surface, this is really putting into practice what the now well coined term “One Up One Down” is all about, it’s great spearfishing safety. TO explain a little further each pair partner can use one gun and has one rig cord connected to their gun, one of these cords is only 4m long, generally the partner on the surface has the short cord hence the diving partner in the pair has the longer rig cord,  both cords are connected to one float only, thus ensuring the float is generally immediately in their dive zone, as east coast southern water spearos can attest to the huge boat traffic we can encounter a dive float and flag is the start of our safe diving checklist.

North Shore Underwater Club had a great Junior representation at the Tomakin Bonanza. Juniors made up one quarter of the sign on. A bright future for spearfishing.

Continue reading 2017 South Coast Mighty Bonanza

NSW State Titles – 2017

This year the 2017 individual State Titles were held by the Central Coast Sealions.

The weekend started at the North end of the Central Coast at Norah Head.

Day 1 – Norah Head

Day 1, started with sign on from 7am which saw 33 divers including 5 female divers from all over including the Far South Coast, Sydney District, Newcastle, Central Coast Region and even Victoria sign on to compete.

Once all safety protocols were checked and species on/off were announced we gave recognition to the first Australians, service men and women & Day 1 commenced.
Divers ran off in all directions from South of Norah to pellows all the way to north of lakes reef… some even made the venture out to the bull!

We had reports from divers swimming back and forth, running from one end to the other of viz between 2 and 15m. Those who had the opportunity to enjoy the 15m had luckily made the right choice in to where to dive. With hours passing we had divers begin to return, some carrying kings over their backs with stories a plenty including the first king taken for Irene a female South Coast Diver.

The great team of the Central Coast Sealions who had chosen not to dive or return early began weigh in and prepare for lunch. Once the fish were weighed divers were given the opportunity to donate any fish which were then filleted, crumbed and put into a wok.

As sign off approached at 1 o’clock all divers had returned and the fish burgers station was in full swing. Fresh bread rolls, salads and fresh crumbed fish fillets were frying away.The burgers went down a treat and were a great hit with several divers returning for seconds and even thirds.
As the day closed and the scores where tallied the leaders and scores for day one were complete.

Day 2 – Bateu Bay

Bateau Bay was chosen as the location for Day 2 with conditions looking good and the final day set to excite.

Day 2 had 34 divers sign on and another beautiful day on the central coast was in store.
Bateau Bay set a challenge to the divers as it was a new adventure and new spot to dive for most. It offered plenty of ground to cover with multiple species to come accross.

All divers returned to the ring on time many with some great fish to show including a decent size king from a Sydney Junior.

Presentation

After a good BBQ feed with home made fried rice and pad thai kindly made by some lovely family members of the USFA and Central coast sealions all the scores where tallied and winners ready to be announced to the eagerly awaiting divers.

With a massive thank you to ADRENO SPEARFISHING, DIVER AUSTRALIA & ACE SPEARGUNS the central coast sealions had the opportunity to give away over $2500 worth of prizes awarded to promote participation along with the tropheys & prizes awarded to the rightful and well deserved winners of each category.

Please enjoy some pictures of the event and place holders throughout the day also attached final score sheets

Day 1 Photos

Day 2 Photos

Presentation Photos

 

Canada Cup 2017

Sunday the 12th Of February saw the 65th running of the Canada Cup. An amazing turnout of 67 divers signed on with an impressive turnout of 21 boats . After a quick briefing the divers hit the water and the boats slowly made their way out of the Haven ready for the start. The flag dropped and the boats were off racing. Almost all of the boats headed north to dive the 2 and 3 mile reefs with some venturing as far as Norah Head and the Bull. The weather gods were really in our favor today with almost glass out conditions for most of the day. The divers had plenty of time as the weigh in was not until 2:30 PM that afternoon. Was great to see every category filled including an amazing 13 juniors, 3 ladies and 3 sub Juniors. The predicted forecast for the day was for temperatures to reach upwards of 35 degrees with a late southerly change late in the afternoon. Continue reading Canada Cup 2017

Alliman Shield 2016 – 11th September – LongReef

Day of the Bumper Bream

It was a good looking day as the boats gathered in the bay below the historic fishermen’s hut at Long Reef. The fifteen odd boats and nearly fifty divers signed on listened to the safety talk, and waited impatiently for the start. North Shore meant business with a roll up of twenty six divers! After the roll call the divers went to their respective boats and motored out a few hundred yards off shore where the flag start was done from big Maccas boat and boats raced north and south to their dive spots.

The conditions were good, although there was a building southerly swell and the water was cold and even colder on the bottom, the divers dived hard working towards the weigh in at 1:15pm. Continue reading Alliman Shield 2016 – 11th September – LongReef