nickrey

The markets are open 365 days per year, with the period around Christmas being their busiest. When the heat can get up to 40C on Xmas day, more people are tending to move to lighter food rather than pretending they're in the Northern hemisphere. Must change the name of that dish, which is one entirely of my creation. It's actually the duck that is cooked twice, being first a confit and then cooked in the broth in a pressure cooker until it is falling apart. I mix the duck with chopped scallions for texture, chopped shiitake mushrooms for body, egg white for binding, plus seasoning. The broth is Asian-inspired and addictive. How about Raviolo of twice-cooked duck in a five spice broth?

Nice looking fish Paul. Moreton Bay Bugs are a species of slipper lobsters. Thanks to Wikipedia for telling me that the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization prefers the name flathead lobster, while the official Australian name is Bay lobster. They are treated similarly to lobster when cooked. More information can be found here.

The high turnover takes care of this. The empty car park you saw is most unusual, as other locals have already commented.

Thank you Nick, I'm fully sated now. All that was really from one shop? Amazing Stuff. Yes, all one shop.

Hi Linda, Probably the best I can do is point you to the Sydney Fish Market's sustainability page which has some comments about Australian seafood practices. Commercial fisherman have quotas. There are fishing exclusion zones in place and the courts take a dim view of people who violate these. A summary of regulations in place and prosecutions can be found here.

Thought it was time to go from surf to turf. Summer is great but the dishes tend to all be light and we use more seafood than other sorts of meat. Tonight we have something different. Despite the trip to the seafood markets, I thought I’d stop off at the North Sydney markets to get some venison. Unfortunately the Mandagery Creek people weren’t there, so I settled on some lamb backstraps. Now what to do with them? A form of baba ganoush with its eggplant should go well with it. What about other vegetables? Those Mediterranean vegetables I did earlier in the week (which was the first time I’d done them) should go well with the eggplant. This was our main course, and of course I had to cook it sous vide. For appetiser, I’ve really been wanting to try the Movida anchovies on toast with smoked tomato sorbet. Out with the ice-cream maker and on with the recipe. Basically, the dish comprises a crisp toasted piece of stale sourdough bread, topped with a special anchovy, some smoked tomato sorbet, and some soaked salted capers. The entree was twice cooked duck in raviolo and five spice flavoured Asian broth. The dish looked like this: Now on to the main. We wound up having sous vide cooked lamb backstraps (55C at a few hours). This was served on the hand-cut babaganoush and accompanied with char grilled vegetables.

lol, nothing. I thought with all the seafood I'd been cooking it was time for a change of pace. I try to buy and cook fresh so did not want to buy something I wouldn't cook today. It was simply a picture tour for my fellow eGulleters.

Yep, it was around 8am.

Ok. That's it for that shop. There are a number of others like it in the markets, as well as the wholesale side of the business and numerous other food shops and restaurants. And if you're hungry after all that, here is a seafood platter from Nick's seafood just for you

Continuing the series

This is De Costi's, which is the shop whose stock I will show to you. For our non-metric users: please not the prices are per kilo not per pound. A kilo is 2.2 pounds if you want to convert to see the comparative prices.

OK now for the fish markets. I've got a lot of photos but was able to batch process them. Let's just get our bearings. This is a series of shots of the markets from outside and inside. Take note of the blue shop second from the right. That is where we will be looking at the seafood in detail. And here is inside the market. I'm showing you this to give you a sense of perspective of the magnitude of the markets and the comparative size of the one store whose seafood you are going to see.

Still working through the Fish market pictures. In the meantime, I cooked some bacon that has been curing in preparation for the weekend. Here is the bacon cured, pre cooking. It was cured as savoury bacon with salt, sugar, pink salt, cracked peppercorns, garlic, and bay leaves. Here it is fresh out of the Weber BBQ Kettle where I cook and smoke it. The picture was taken prior to the skin being removed. And here it is on mine and my wife's BLTs. My kids had the Duck Laab that I made last night.

Back from fish markets and I've got a lot of photos. Need to process them before posting. Here's a teaser. Fresh marinara mix. More later.

Having read Malcolm Gladwell's recent book Outliers, he argues that you need ten thousand hours of increasingly complex practice to reach the point of exceptional performace. The thesis is interesting but simplistic from a psychological perspective. It doesn't take into account the intersection between natural ability and practice. You can have natural ability and never practice sufficiently to be an outlier. Or you can practice as long as you want but if the intersection between motivation, ability, and perception is not there, you're just not going to crack it. We all know people who seem to benefit more from experience than others. Show them once and they're doing it. Show others five times and they still have trouble doing it. To become an outlier, you have to have a combination of raw ability, learning ability in that particular skill, tenacity, and exposure. For some this will come later. For some earlier. We've long since passed the notion that the brain locks into place after puberty. New neural networks continue to be created throughout life. There is thus no hard and fast rule that you have to be exposed to something at a young age to reach a certain level of proficiency. It's just that given the same ability, motivation, etc if you start earlier, you have a leg up in terms of experience over those who started later.

Yes, we always get head on prawns here when they are sold whole. No, I didn't use them but I must admit to loving them at teppanyaki when they are fried.

Off to the fish markets now. Back with pictures soon.

The interest waxes and wanes. If they do cook something, however, they have very good basic skills and a comfort with cooking that I suspect comes from watching me cook.

Hi Bruce, nice to see you dropping in. Lets' work through the recipes. I'm not good on specifying quantities as I do most things by eye, so you may have to improvise a bit. First, the soup. 2 cups chicken stock. 2 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced 2 tbsp sliced lemongrass around 15 straw mushrooms Bird's eye chillis to taste (I used two very hot ones), finely sliced 3 tbsp lime juice 4 tsp fish sauce 1 large piece fresh turmeric (put this between paper towels and smash it hard with the side of your knife to break it up) 2 shallots, cut lengthwise against the rings into thin slices 1 Coriander root and part of stem, chopped. 200g fish, cubed Palm sugar to taste Bring chicken stock to boil. Add all ingredients except the fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice. Simmer for a few minutes until fish is starting to look cooked. Add fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice. Taste and adjust each of these components until the broth is sweet/sour/salty/hot. To serve, top with coriander leaves. The duck salad. One duck breast Lime juice, Fish Sauce, Chopped Bird's eye Chilli, and Palm Sugar (for dressing in the ratio 3:2:2:1). Taste and adjust to your preference. 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 bunches mint, leaves picked off and washed. 2 shallots, cut lengthwise against the rings into thin slices 3 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced a 7 cm/3 inch piece of lemongrass, finely sliced 2 cm/1 inch piece of galangal. Peeled and finely sliced 1 lebanese cucumber, peeled and finely sliced (I use a vegetable peeler or mandoline to do this) Cherry tomatoes, halved, to serve. Pre-heat oven to 180C/350F Season the duck breast with salt and pepper, place in cold pan skin side down and turn heat to high. Let fat render for a while, turn and cook on other side for a few minutes. Place frypan (make sure it's heat proof) in oven until duck is cooked to your preference. Mix salad ingredients together in bowl. Place on serving tray. Finely slice duck and place on salad. Serve with dressing in separate jug so people can dress it themselves. Paneang Prawns Sufficient prawns for the number of people you are serving (we had four each). 3/4 cup coconut milk 3 tbsp Panaeng curry paste (I had home-made using David Thompson's recipe) 2 kaffir lime leaves cut into chiffonade handful of basil leaves, coarsely sliced. 2 tbsp unsalted cashew nuts, crushed in mortar and pestle tbsp fish sauce 8-10 lychees. Grill the prawns until just done. Heat the coconut milk until simmering, add curry paste and stir until well combined. Add all other ingredients except basil and heat through. Add basil leaves just before serving. Place prawns on serving plate, pour the sauce over. Garnish with additional basil leaves or other greens (I used coriander). Hope you enjoy them.