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Serves 4
Ingredients
850g medium Desiree potatoes
100g butter
4 tsp dried wasabi powder
1-cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste
• Peel and cut potatoes into quarters
• Steam for 15 – 20 mins or until soft.
• Mash potatoes with a potato masher (do not use a food processor as potatoes become glue like)
• Mix wasabi powder with enough water to form a thick paste
• Heat milk and butter in a pan.
Fold milk, butter and wasabi into mash potatoes.
Ingredients
50ml olive oil
2 cloves garlic
½ kg spinach
Salt and pepper to taste
• Sauté spinach in olive oil and garlic for one minute or until wilted.
• Add salt and pepper to taste
4x 160g Stripey Trumpeter fish fillets (Snapper, Jewfish or Blue eye trevalla are ideal substitutes)
100ml olive oil
1cup white wine
1 medium lemon juiced
15g butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Flour for dusting fish
1 tbsp continental parsley, chopped finely
Just before fish is cooked
Divide mash between 4 plates
Place four equal portions of spinach on top of mash
Heat olive oil in frying pan.
Season fish fillets and dust lightly in flour
When oil is hot, add fish to pan.
Cook fish fillets for 2 minutes or until golden then turn and cook other side.
Deglaze the pan with white wine, lemon juice and butter.
Place in a hot oven (180C) for 3 minutes until fish is almost cooked.
When fish is cooked place on top of wasabi mashed potatoes and spinach. Reduce sauce by ½ then add chopped parsley in last seconds.
Pour sauce over the fish.
Tasmania is a state of salacious seafood, fantastic fruits and brilliant beef. In fact Tasmania is a veritable paradise of produce. Oceans that abound with piscatorial wonders such as King crabs, abalone, scallops, mussels, sea urchins and some of the finest fish in the sea.
Angasi or flat oysters are native to Tasmania and were first eaten by the local aboriginals. Recently, I was a guest chef at Barilla Bay oyster farm and restaurant. For purely investigative purposes I was prevailed upon to sip champagne and eat Angasi and farmed Pacific oysters for breakfast. What a way to start a day’s work! Sexy, voluptuous oysters with wondrous texture and clean salty juices for breakfast. It certainly ensured the following nights menu was cheerfully compiled.
The spikey exterior of the sea urchin is the perfect guise to conceal the creamy golden roes contained within. Try it raw or in a mayonnaise.
The Chinese were the first to dive for abalone (or muttonfish as it is otherwise known) as the early Tasmanians considered it inedible. Interestingly, today Tasmania is the largest producer of abalone in the world. I dived for it off Bruny Island (south of Hobart) enjoying the catch barbequed on an open fire at the beach. If abalone breaks the budget head to Spring Bay for plump, juicy scallops. Try steaming them with a warm tamarind and mild chilli dressing.
Tasmania is justly famous for saltwater crays. However, the best sea creature is a fish named Striped Trumpeter. Beautiful, firm, juicy, tasty and fatty fillets that are high in omega3 and perfect to sashimi, pan fry, grill or bake. Blue eye trevalla and tuna are other excellent eating fish.
King crabs grow to 15kg and in true eastern tradition are considered both lucky due to their red colour and prestigious because of their expense. Tasmanian mussels and vongole are plump and tasty and yell and scream the virtues of coldwater shellfish.
Tasmania is not only seafood. Enjoy their fantastic honey, cheese, beer and wine. It is also the only place you can get the native Tasmanian pepperberry. They are great in sauces and perfect for seasoning. In my restaurant we serve an organic scotch fillet from Marrawah where the cattle graze in grass up to their wastes. It could be cut with a spoon and is great with pepperberry sauce. We also source fresh wasabi , a far superior product to its powdered counterparts for sashimi plates. Before I throw in the steak knives allow me to add they have great potatoes, apples, quinces and the biggest, best “eat me “cherries. Truffle production is another growing industry in Tasmania.
It is amazing what transpires from the cleanest air and seawater on the planet. However, like a beast to a salt lick I am drawn to seafood. In Tasmania, the rich sensuality and fecundity of the ocean is in every taste. It is no wonder Casanova ate oysters for breakfast. I believe that if they were Tasmanian he would still be doing the rounds today!!
Never buy scallops soaked in freshwater, a common ploy utilized by unscrupulous vendors to artificially increase the scallops weight. They look very white, but lose flavour, texture and weight when cooked.
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