Season’s Greetings to all our readers, from FRDC. We hope you have a restful break, enjoy some of our great Australian seafood with family and friends, spend some time on and in the water and maybe even cast a line. 

In our video, a few of our FRDC staff and stakeholders describe their favourite seafood recipes (below), as well as their hopes for 2023. Enjoy! 

Wishing you a very happy festive season and a peaceful and prosperous new year. 

 

 

Recipes

• Calamari Salad “insalata di calamari’ 
• Boiled Banana Prawns and Morton Bay Bugs 
• Scallop Mornay or Kilpatrick
• Creamy Tuscan fish
• Butterflied jumbo prawns marinated in rum coconut chilli and lime served with a papaya jam
• Fresh seafood assortment

 

 

David Ciaravolo's Fishmas seafood of choice: Calamari Salad “insalata di calamari’ 

 

Ingredients

• Calamari
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt
• Fresh red chillies
• black pepper
• 1 sprig of parsley: 1 sprig
• half lemon juice + zest

Method

1. Blanch calamari, cooking it very delicately in salted water before a quick ice bath to ensure the cooking stops.
2. Drench in lemon juice and finely chopped parsley.
3. Season with coarsely grated lemon rind, fresh red chilli and black pepper.

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Michael O'Brien's Fishmas seafood of choice: Boiled Banana Prawns and Morton Bay Bugs 

 

1. In a large pot with lid, add water half full and heaps of salt and then a touch more.
2. Bring water to boil, add prawns leave in water for two minutes then start lifting a prawn out check to see if meat has started to come away from back of prawn shell.
3. Pull out prawns, put into ice water brine to cool - very important to stop the cooking process.
4. For the bugs, pull off head before cooking, the same as for prawns.
5. Once meat looks cooked, pull out and ice brine them too.
6. Do not overcook, once plated, I add a touch of salt over the seafood plus my wife’s secret seafood sauce.

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Kylie Dunstan's Fishmas seafood of choice: Scallop Mornay or Kilpatrick

 

My favourite way of cooking them is in the half shell with a mornay or Kilpatrick sauce - that tangy pop of Kilpatrick (our old skipper Mark Wellbeloved and his wife Bron created their own award-winning blend of Worstershire sauce called Well Loved, so I try and use that where possible) or creamy mornay is just divine. They’re sensational – so moist, delicious and flavourful. I have to say, I love the simple too - a freshly caught mud crab boiled in salt water eaten hot, or Moreton Bay Bug tail, or a handful of cooked Eastern King Prawns with a squeeze of zingy lemon.

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James Florisson's Fishmas seafood of choice: Creamy Tuscan fish

 

Ingredients

• 3 fish fillets/fillet sections (100-200gm each) (Spanish mackerel, tuskfish or atlantic salmon, but most fish will do)
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 5 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable stock
• 150g jarred sun-dried tomato in oil, drained of oil
• 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 cups baby spinach leaves
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 pinch paprika

Method

1. Heat half the butter and oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Season the fish fillets on the skin side with salt and pepper, and sear in the hot pan. Skin (optional) side first for 5 minutes to create crispy skin, then 1 minute on other side (any fish still raw will be cooked through the sauce later). Remove from pan and set aside.
2. In the same pan, melt the remaining butter and oil in the remaining cooking juices leftover. Add in the garlic and fry until fragrant (about one minute). Add onion and stir fry until translucent. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and fry for 1-2 minutes so they release their flavour. Finally, pour in the vegetable stock, and allow the sauce to reduce down slightly.
3. Reduce heat to low, add the heavy cream, and bring to a gentle simmer while stirring occasionally. Season the cream sauce with salt, pepper and paprika to your taste.
4. Add in the baby spinach and allow to wilt in the sauce, and add in the parmesan cheese. Allow the cream sauce to simmer for a further minute until cheese melts through.
5. Add the fish back into the pan; sprinkle with the parsley, and spoon the sauce over each piece of fish.
6. Serve over pasta, steamed veg, zoodles, cauliflower rice or whatever you want! My go to is over creamy mashed potatoes (with garlic salt, homegrown parsley and chives and cheddar in the mash – not healthy though!).

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Chris Padovani's Fishmas seafood of choice:
Butterflied jumbo prawns marinated in rum coconut chilli and lime served with a papaya jam

 

Ingredients

• 12 extra large green Australian prawns, butterflied
• Lime and sliced green chilli to serve

• Marinade
• 75 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 tbsp rum
• Papaya Jam
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped ginger
• 1 ripe papaya (about 1kg), peeled, seeds removed and chopped
• 1 cup caster sugar
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• ½ tsp mixed spice

Method

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add the onion and cook for 3-4 minutes until softened. Add the ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes then add the papaya, sugar, vinegar, orange juice and zest and the mixed spice with ½ cup water.
3. Cook for 40 minutes until thickened and papaya has broken down. Remove and allow to cool.

Recipe source:
https://www.victorianseafood.com.au/recipes/butterflied-jumbo-prawns-marinated-in-rum-coconut-chilli-and-lime-served-with-a-papaya-jam provided by - https://australianprawns.com.au/recipes/

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Steve Eayrs' Fishmas seafood of choice: Fresh seafood assortment

Put together a platter of hot or cold seafood of choice and enjoy!

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