In Australia, the warm, balmy days and nights of summer, and the festive season, are synonymous with fresh .
Whether it’s platters of rock oysters and cold prawns, Moreton or Balmain bugs, split, grilled and drizzled with garlic butter, a or a whole barra stuffed with ginger and lemon grass, Australians love celebrating with a shared seafood spread, especially one coloured by the many global influences our food enjoys.
But when it comes to choosing the seafood and cooking it, it gets a bit trickier. How to cook fish perfectly? What are some easy tips for choosing fresh seafood? What about sustainability?
We asked some experts for their , from choosing the perfect fish and crustaceans, to storing, cooking and serving them right.
Essential seafood shopping advice
There's nothing like a beautiful platter of oysters when it comes to impressing guests at a dinner party. When buying this delicacy, look for oysters that are plump, and with cream-coloured flesh, says Brisbane-based seafood providore and former chef, Umar Nguyen, aka
As for fish, you need to look into their eyes. "Fish should be clear-eyed. And when buying a whole fish, check under the gills," Nguyen says. “It sounds strange, but fish shouldn’t smell ‘fishy,’ it should smell briny – like the ocean. If they’re a healthy dark red, it’s another good indicator of freshness.”
Umar Nguyen Credit: Supplied
Perhaps her most important tip? You might want to make friends with your fishmonger – they’re experts in what’s in season.
Easy tips for choosing sustainable seafood
According to Rachel Seo, chef de cuisine at , which focuses on serving sustainable seafood, there is plenty available in Australia.
“The key is knowing to ask the right questions,” she says. “When visiting your fishmonger or market, ask the supplier where they source their produce. The answer you’re looking for is that it's from sustainable fisheries that practice eco-friendly farming, with ASC (Aquaculture Sustainability) or BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices) certification. Or that it’s wild-caught with MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) accreditation.
Rachel Seo Credit: Supplied
Once you've bought your sustainable seafood, it's important to store fish and seafood correctly.
Unless you like your yoghurt fish-flavoured, you’ll want to store your seafood in something airtight in the fridge. But firstly, take it out of that plastic bag which can make it slimy. Nguyen stores hers in a container on a new Chux cloth or wrapped in waxed paper in Ziploc sandwich bags.
If you have raw and cooked seafood in the fridge, it's important to keep them separate so they don’t cross-contaminate. And how long can you keep it for? T recommends storing your fresh seafood at 5°C or below and consuming it within two days.
Grilling seafood tips from the pros
Nguyen recommends asking your fishmonger to butterfly a fish of about 1-1.5kg.
“Gold band snapper or red emperor are good for this,” she says “Sear the fish in a pan for a few minutes before grilling, that way it helps it to hold its shape and won’t dry out.” And make sure to have the grill already on and hot, she says.
You can also grill bugs or split prawns, with a little butter, garlic and salt until the flesh turns white. Or try the retro favourite, oysters Kilpatrick, grilled until the bacon topping is crisp.
A whole, thick-fleshed fish like swordfish or farmed cobia are also good sustainable choices that will stand up to grilling or barbecuing, according to Good Fish. To barbecue more delicate species, wrap your fish in foil.
The same rule applies to baking.
Use bigger, whole fish, like barramundi, John Dory or snapper and cover it in foil for the first part of the cook, then take off for the rest, Seo advises. "You can add crumbs to the top or put herbs like dill or chervil or ginger and lemon grass into the cavity for extra flavour. Another minimal-effort approach is to
“Wherever possible, make sure to keep the fish whole with the skin on to preserve the juiciness of the fish and retain the delicious natural flavour,” she adds.
Cooking seafood like a chef
Love the crisp skinned fish you enjoy at restaurants but can never quite nail at home? There's a trick to it.
"For super crisp skin, score the fillet and sprinkle with salt. Heat canola oil to medium-hot, then put the fillet in the pan skin side down and use an egg flip to press it down firmly until the skin crisps up," Nguyen says. "If you’re pan-frying a particularly thick fillet you can or just flip and do the other side."
Credit: Supplied
“A key trick for cooking certain types of fish such as tuna, kingfish and scallops is to keep the centre raw to keep the fish juicy and avoid and rubbery or dry texture,” Seo says.
While we can be fearful about undercooked seafood, according to the Food Safety Information Council, we’re more likely to get sick from raw eggs, poorly handled chicken, or minced meat than seafood.
Another chef-fy hack is to use it all up. When buying a whole fish, ask the fishmonger to save you the head and wings, which make a
Rachel Seo uses the bones to make a rich fish jus. Prawn or lobster shells can be used to make a as the basis of a Or use them for a seafood oil, Nguyen suggests, which you can use to enrich seafood dishes or incorporate into a mayonnaise, like Khan Ong does with these yabby rolls.
After all, nose-to-tail consumption of fish isn't just some trendy sustainability fad, it's been practiced by many cultures since ancient times.
