From the Editor, Leigh O’Connor.
Australia is blessed with phenomenal seafood from luxurious lobster to everyone’s favourite flathead fillets. This week we take to the ocean waters to discover all that seafood has to offer – think luxe on a budget recipes, how to build a seafood tower and ways to use canned seafood according to the experts.
What kind of sauce would you pair with your favourite seafood dishes? The obvious answer is tartar – but let’s think outside the box a little and experiment with different textures and flavours that complement anything from lobster to barramundi, prawns and everything in between. We serve up five different sauces and recipes to take your next seafood dinner up a notch and elevate dishes to a new level.
Tassal Ambassador Chef Guy Turland has teamed up with renowned Indigenous Chef Mark Olive, aka ‘The Black Olive’, creator of ‘The Outback Café’ TV series and a proud Bundjalung man, to celebrate delicious, ocean-grown barramundi from Cone Bay/Yaloon.
Together, they’ve created a one-of-a-kind dish that highlights indigenous Australian ingredients and techniques – native Aussie herbed barramundi skewers. Mark also shares his tips on preparing barramundi from wrapping it in paperbark to maintain moisture and flavour to cooking the fish over hot coals.
Would you eat lobster ice cream? If you want to venture outside the norm check out our article on five of the strangest seafood dishes on your plate plus a recipe for lobster ice cream that you have to try at least once! This recipe was born out of a regular get-together with like-minded Chefs where they challenged each other to come up with new dishes.
Summer is the ideal time to try this innovative ice cream, just don’t tell your guests what they are eating and wait for the reaction as they put the first creamy and smooth spoonful into their mouths.
From a humble family of unadventurous cooks in the United Kingdom, Nelly Robinson left home to travel to Australia with $140 in his bank account. He stopped off in Singapore on the way through, spent all the money and arrived Down Under with the sum total of $2!
He is now owner and Executive Chef at 16-hatted Nel Restaurant on Wentworth Avenue in Sydney where you’ll discover fine dining with an irreverent attitude and an ever-changing 11-course degustation-themed menu. We chat to Nelly about how with hard work, dedication and determination you can do anything – he is living proof of this and is on the journey of a lifetime.
He shares his recipe for classic fish pie – a dish close to his heart and his father’s favourite – which invokes memories of home sitting together on a cold Winter’s night warming their bellies with amazing prawns, fish and smoked haddock, topped with cheesy mashed potato.
Fresh, local lobster is a great Summer treat, whether you live on the coast or get to visit on vacation. While that sweet, tender and succulent flesh is undeniably irresistible, there is always the question of how to get it out of the shell! Find out the best technique for getting the most out of your lobster, what utensils to use and we serve up a classic lobster thermidor recipe; along with ceviche versus crudo, what’s the difference?
It’s getting hot in the Canberra kitchen – we tell you about three new dining destinations in the country’s capital including Chris Lucas’s first Canberra restaurant, Carlotta.
Read on for a bumper seafood extravaganza...
