Food Safari

There are so many varieties of seafood

and an exponential number of recipes

relating to each type of fish and crustacean.

Cooking the bounty of the sea doesn't have to be complicated.

Many of the world's great seafood recipes

are easy, one-pot meals.

Welcome to Food Safari Water.

In this episode of Food Safari Water, delicious Vietnamese clay-pot fish,

the spicy abundance of a Louisiana crawfish boil,

the secrets of Peruvian parihuela...

Lovely.

..Thai jungle curry with delicate whiting,

classic Spanish fideua, and steaming Belgian mussels.

It's good, huh? Mm!

The earthy simplicity of cooking in a clay pot

has been a method used throughout the world,

from the chattis of the Subcontinent

to the tagines of North Africa and Egypt.

In Vietnam, clay-pot cooking is a favourite method

to add a richness of flavour to many proteins.

The clay, which, unlike metal, contains some moisture,

helps to steam the fish as well as brown it over coals or a flame.

Yeah, I do love them.

Angie Hong is one of Sydney's treasured food pioneers.

A one-time chef and owner of three Vietnamese restaurants,

she still loves creating delicious, authentic feasts.

Tell me, Angie, the culture of having live fish

and buying live fish - that's really important, isn't it?

It is important, especially for our elderly parents.

They wouldn't eat any dead fish.

So, that's how they've been brought up.

Unless the fish is moving, it's not fresh.

Yeah, fresh. That's true.

Here we go.

Oh, easy!

What is it that you love about clay-pot fish?

Very Vietnamese, and the flavour from the earthenware

are distinct in flavour of the clay pot.

And as soon as you see it,

your mouth is watering straightaway.

Wow. Fantastic. Yeah.

First of all, you've got to scald the fish first.

So, make... Oh, with boiling water.

With boiling water first. What does that do to the fish?

That will take the caramel colour much better.

And then straight into cold water.

Yeah. So, you can see them - they firm up.

Mm. But they're not cooked yet.

Now I'm going to make a paste. The white part of the spring onion.

Yes, and then I just pound it.

Then I'm going to add some peppercorn to it.

Just use this fish sauce. Mm-hm.

Say...that much sugar.

OK, so now I'm just grinding it a little bit

and I pour it onto here.

So, you just coat all the parts of the fish with the marinade.

Yeah.

To make a quick caramel to give the fish a colour,

I need some cooking oil.

You need it fairly hot,

so when you put the sugar in, it starts to melt.

See? Sort of caramelised now.

And then annatto seed infused in oil,

and that will give a red colour.

So, I'm going to get the fish straight in.

That's how it is. Wow!

God, look at that colour. It's fantastic! Yeah, you see?

That's why you use silver perch -

because when you turn them like this, they don't break.

Yes, it's a really good, firm fish. Firm fish. Good, firm fish.

Now I'm going to put the lid on

so that the steam will cook the fish.

Let it simmer for about...

Probably about three minutes.

Right, OK. Oh, stunning!

That's been such a fast dish too. I know. It's so easy.

The next step is to garnish it with shallots

and then some chilli as well.

That looks fantastic.

Have to do some peppercorn on it as well.

And then you just put this one on again

and then take it to the table and open it.

Alright. Are you ready?

I am ready. Oh! Oh, my God.

That looks beautiful. OK.

You take that one. It's so beautiful and juicy.

You get some of the salad to go with it, and then...

See? Oh, beautiful. The caramel.

I'm going to try just the fish. Mm! Mm!

So yummy. Mm!

That is incredibly tender and so delicious.

Very, very lovely. Mm!

That's something you could make at least once a week.

Or every day. (LAUGHS)

In Melbourne's hipster heartland mid-Saturday afternoon,

one-pot cooking comes on a massive scale,

as chef Chris Weysham sometimes recreates

his Cajun grandmother's recipe for crawfish boil,

learnt from weekends spent with her on the bayous.

Chris heads the kitchen at Po' Boy Quarter

and the soul food bar East of Everything in Camberwell.

Back home in Louisiana, crawfish is the number-one seafood.

So, one of the great food traditions from your part of the world

is the crawfish boil.

So, this is like a yabby? Like an Aussie yabby? It's like a yabby, exactly.

But they live in murky, muddy, muddy water.

And then you just get a pot like this going,

chuck them right in there and you're good to go.

And so you're recreating the bayou here in the backstreets of Fitzroy. That's exactly right.

We're just using Australian seafood, but there's no reason why

you can't have the same kind of cookout they would have down there.

So, this is the spice mix right here.

It's pretty much everything I've got in the spice rack.

Chris, how much of the spice mix has gone into the pot?

A good bit, a healthy amount.

Five of these go into that one pot. Whoa!

Just trying to keep it traditional.

So, I want to start with what we call the fixins,

which are all your veg and our sausage.

Drop some potatoes in there. Corn.

Oh, corn in this sort of seasoning would be fantastic.

Andouille sausage. So, what is andouille sausage?

So, andouille sausage is a smoked pork sausage

and really spicy, really juicy, really delicious sausage.

We're just going to chuck all the garlic in there.

Cajun food's a lot of one-pot meals -

jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice.

That's just because Cajun people,

when they first started to settle in Louisiana,

they all lived in the swamps and it was everything they could forage off of the land.

And any kind of wild animals and fish and seafood they had,

they'd just chuck it all in a pot together.

I think we're done. Yeah? Pick it up.

Hold it over the pot. Let the water come out.

Wow! That is just such a seriously big pot.

Whoo! (LAUGHS)

Chuck it all on the table like that.

So, that's our fixins.

So, you always cook in two parts, Chris?

You always cook in two parts. That's right.

So, now, after that, all the fixins have been cooked,

so we're going to throw the lemons in first.

Then we want to take our blue swimmers.

Great. Wow!

Same thing with shrimp as well.

Just give it a quick stir,

and then we'll be done in a couple of minutes.

Whoa! That looks so good.

Fantastic.

Alright. Louisiana-style goodness.

So, this is as you'd have it back home? This is how we have it back home.

You always have it out on the table? Yeah, that's right.

So, you just take a prawn and...? Just take a prawn.

Just rip the head off of there. Mm.

Oh, that is great. Does that work out for you?

It really is. Nice.

That's lovely,

because this fantastic broth that you've cooked it in...

That's it. ..gives it so much flavour.

There's something very elemental about eating with your hands.

You want the juice running down your arms.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Is there a Cajun phrase that you use

about this sort of style of eating or...?

Yeah, you might say, "Laissez les bons temps rouler,"

which is, "Let the good times roll."

Hey! (LAUGHS)

While truffles hold the title of black gold from the earth,

the black gold of the sea are mussels,

the black shells and plump, golden meat inside

synonymous with Belgian cuisine,

huge steaming pots served throughout the northern autumn.

Chef David Coumont says the aroma of mussels cooking

is part of his DNA,

along with three other Belgian essentials.

Mayonnaise, chips, mussels and beer. It's beautiful.

David grew up in the tiny village of Moxhe in central Belgium

and trained as a chef working at Michelin-star level,

coming to Australia in 2013.

His Sydney restaurant Moxhe celebrates the best

of Australian seafood used in inventive ways.

And while moules frites is not on his menu,

he'll cook up a pot when he feels like a taste of home.

So, take the biggest pot you have. Mm.

And then a little bit of butter.

Some eschalots and onion that are finely diced. Mm.

We're going to cook them really, really gently.

We start with something that looks quite nice. Ah!

I'm going to add some celery.

Some pepper and one star anise.

The garlic just has been smashed with a knife,

and then the bouquet garni.

We're back on high heat.

And we're going to add the wine, or chardonnay. Lots of it.

So, now it's boiling really well.

So, all in? Yeah, all in.

The celery leaves. OK? And we leave it on a high heat.

Shake them a little bit. Yeah.

So, if you have a look at this one, it's not formed yet.

It's big. It looks soft. It's not cooked yet.