Grilled whiting with parsley and lemon, whole baked fish Thai style, and species selection chat.
Only a handful of places sell fresh fish directly from the boat, and Harvest is one of them. This may shock some readers, but retailers often buy Tasmanian fish back after it’s sold to interstate wholesalers. We’re not economists, but this seems weird at best. Tasmanian seafood is worth celebrating in its own right. That you can buy it fresh as fresh can be, directly from the person who caught it, right here at Harvest, is doubly celebratory. Thus, we’re dutifully celebrating it.
So, you want to serve fish…
But what fish, exactly? This can pose a challenge. When we think about, say, beef or lamb, we can only talk about variants within a species. When talking about fish, though, we’re talking about dozens of individual species, each offering their pros and cons. The style of cuisine, the preparation method, the intended accoutrements, and, of course, your budget are but a few considerations when selecting a species for the table. Let’s not go down the road of the variants within the species. Now is not the time to debate the merits of sand vs King George whiting. Leave that to the restaurant nerds.
You can start by asking yourself some basic questions. Do you want to serve a whole fish (very dramatic on the table, sure to impress), whole fillets, or individual steaks? This should rule certain species in or out. Whole fish? Flathead isn’t for you; it’s the wrong shape, and the skin tends not to crisp. Neither is, say, stripey trumpeter or blue-eye trevalla (technically a variety of cod, but again, that’s for the food nerds). They’re too big, and you’d be damned lucky to find them for sale as whole fish in any case. Fillets? Well, then you’re into flathead and whiting territory. Plus, there are the dory and flounder variants, alongside your more obscure species like luderick, goatfish, or morwong (as long as it’s not a monster).
These also work for whole fish. Cooking a whole fish has the advantage of easy skinning and boning after cooking. Snapper is great for this application, as are Perch and Gurnard variants ( both underrated). This is all good general advice, but if you really want the inside track to the perfect fish for the perfect application, talk to the fishmonger. Where can you do that? That’s right, at Harvest.
Grilled whiting with parsley and lemon
The determining factor of the whiting variant here is what landed on the boat that particular day. This recipe will work no matter the variant. When we created this one recently, we were lucky enough to KG whiting, plus some foraged native coastal celery. It really kicked the herb puree up a notch! But it works just fine without the pretentious foraged ingredients.
Take a bunch of parsley, the zest of a lemon, a clove of garlic, a good pinch of sea salt, and plenty of EV olive oil and blend until homogenous and smooth. Pat your whiting fillets dry, and then paint the flesh of the fillets with the puree. Let them sit for an hour or so to come to room temperature. Then, place these under a gentle grill. The key here is gentle heat so as not to discolour and thereby change the flavour of the marinade. 8 to 10 minutes under the grill ought to do it, but use your judgment. When the flesh has changed to fully white, and it’s flaky to the touch, you’re good to go. And that’s it, really. Serve with some buttered, minted potatoes and a fresh garden salad featuring cucumber. Perfect flavour profiles all around.
Thai style whole baked fish
Really, this is all about the herb salad and the dressing. A different set of garnishes would obviously make it a very different dish. The key to this one is the palm sugar, lime, fish sauce and chilli balance. Sweet, salty, sour, hot: a quintessentially southeast Asian flavour profile.
Using kitchen shears, trim the pectoral, ventral, and dorsal fins from the fish. Your whole fish is likely not scaled, so scale it using a blunt serrated knife. Then, using a sharp knife, score a diamond pattern in the flesh on both sides. Rub a pinch of salt and some vegetable oil into each side. Place the fish onto a baking tray lined with non-stick paper and bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 180. Then, gently flip the fish and back into the oven for another 12 to 15.
While the baking is happening, dissolve 75 grams of dark palm sugar in 75 ml of water and add 50 ml of fish sauce, the juice of two limes, and the zest of one, two very finely sliced kaffir lime leaves and two very finely sliced birds-eye chillies. Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil as well. Take a bunch of coriander, tear off the leafy bits, and reserve. Finely slice the tender stems and add them to the dressing mixture. Roughly chop the coriander, and in a separate bowl, combine a handful of bean shoots with the coriander leaves, plus two very finely sliced spring onions and a tablespoon or two of crispy shallots.
Gently transfer your fishy onto a big dramatic serving platter. Dress the coriander and bean shoot salad with the palm sugar dressing. Dress the fish with the salad and spoon over any remaining dressing to pool in the bottom of the platter. The dressing will soak into the scoring and the whole thing will become one big unctuous dish that is certain to get plenty of ooh’s and aah’s.
You can devote entire years to exploring seafood, and many have made entire careers out of it. Hopefully you’ve found a little inspiration and some helpful pointers to get you started herein.
Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow.