I found a bit of yellowbelly (golden perch) in the freezer the other day and decided to make up a batch of fish cakes. They turned out really well, so I wanted to share the recipe. This recipe would work well with pretty much any kind of fish. Ingredients 400gr fish flesh (make sure you say FLESH like a viking…
Category: Recipes
3 tips for eating raw fish and why it’s a good thing
Do you remember the first time you ate raw fish? Do you eat it regularly? Are you afraid to prepare it yourself? The first time I remember eating raw fish was during my 20’s when Hamish prepared Kingfish sashimi on the south coast of NSW. It involved thin slices of white flesh arranged neatly with just a little wasabi and…
Fantastic Fried Fish in Furikake
I’ve just got back from a wonderful two-month trip overseas to Hawaii. Sunshine, surf and bikinis aside, there is a really interesting food culture to explore over there, with a mix of native Hawaiian, American, Korean, Portuguese and very prominent Japanese influences. So while we have the classics like deep-fried whole fish and crumbed fish and some more creative techniques…
Red rock cod, ocean perch and leatherjacket – the neglected reefies
It’s common when we’re fishing inshore to get fixated on so called ‘desirable’ species; the sand/tiger flathead and snapper, and to a lesser extent, redfish (nannygai) and blue morwong. However, a number of the other species we wind up from the depths seem to be neglected by anglers, either because they are perceived as rubbish fish or are seen to…
Fishing in Vietnam – a study in efficiency (photo essay)
I’ve been lucky enough to spend a few months living in Vietnam this year, visiting my partner who has a 12 month contract in Hanoi. In my spare time, which is most of the time she is at work, I’ve taken to trying to work out how the locals catch fish. Vietnam has a strong fishing culture and there are…
Catching and cooking a carp – part II
In the first part of this crazy carp adventure, I looked at where to catch an ‘eating carp’ around Canberra. The word on various fishing forums and social media was that they taste better with less of a muddy taste from flowing rivers than from lakes. If I was going to embark on this mission, I wanted to make sure the fish…
A quest to catch and cook a Canberra carp
“Wow, this tastes surprisingly good for carp. It’s actually quite nice. Wait – it didn’t come from Lake Burley Griffin did it!?” Background Earlier this year I wrote an article describing how to prepare a carp for a meal, based on a method by Keith Bell of K&C Fisheries. Hey, I was skeptical too, until I went to a carp fishing…
Eating ‘trash’ fish – mullet, slimy mackerel, yellowtail, leatherjacket and salmon
Countless times I’ve been walking along a bridge or wharf, checking out what people are catching, and seen them throwing back so-called ‘trash’ fish, in the hope of catching a bream, snapper, flathead or other such ‘desirable’ species. The fish that find their way back are often the slimy mackerel, yellowtail scad (yakkas), leatherjacket, mullet and salmon. While I love…
Recipe: Thai fish cakes
This is one of my favourite recipes. Generally, recipes I like are the ones that are easy, don’t take long to prepare and cook, and always taste delicious. The other things I really like are flexibility and versatility, so this recipe definitely has it all. There are usually enough ingredients lying around to make it work, so don’t be afraid…
A cook on the wild side
As a fishing tourist, you don’t usually have the luxury of the creature comforts you are accustomed to back home. For example, having flown over to NZ recently to harass the resident populations of monster trout, I had no chilly bin <ahem> esky, no cutlery, and no pots and pans. Keeping and cooking fresh fish was going to be a…
Garlic, chilli and white wine mussels- a recipe of sorts
This is the last post of my recipe blitz. As you can maybe tell, my fishing expeditions over the holidays weren’t all that successful. The demands of the girlfriend, family and social events meant I wasn’t out fishing as much as I would have liked and my stubborn insistence that I was going to fish “fly only” for the trip to try…
Sage abolone recipe
Next up in the blitz- abalone. If you frequent the South coast of NSW or the Victorian and Tasmanian coastlines regularly odds are you have dived for abalone. They are easy enough to collect and clean and in many areas are plentiful. At times, on some camping trips, its easy to forget they are a delicacy, they can become a…