Food Safari

Italian families around the world hold one day sacred

to pursue a national pastime

eating and drinking and spending time together.

Sundays are sacrosanct.

Welcome to Italian Food Safari.

On this safari, the joys of rock fishing,

a recipe for Sicilian baked snapper,

golden taralli,

a guide to Italian varietal wines

and an alfresco lunch with four generations of a winemaking family.

So is this a bit of a favourite spot?

Fantastic spot here actually.

Why, what's happening under the water?

Hopefully some snapper!

On any beautiful Australian morning,

rock fishermen make their way to their favourite spots

to catch dinner.

The lure of the wild catch has been a magnet to many Italians

including Aussie Italian Alex Bellissimo, a fishing expert,

who's made a successful business of coaching novices.

Why is this the best time to go fishing?

Well, the tide's high and draws in clear water

and we need to cast out the distance of around a footy field or more.

Oh, really? Yeah.

Around a hundred metres, hundred and twenty metres,

and we're going to get out to that nice gravelly bottom

and those delectable snapper will be out there. Right.

They find their fodder there and that's where we'll find our fodder.

Alex uses an oily fish like mackerel as bait for the snapper.

So whatever bait you use targets a particular sort of fish, right?

Yeah, sort of, in short, yeah, absolutely.

So, conditions are perfect? Absolutely perfect.

Good.

Some skill is needed to cast out to where the fish are feeding.

You push-pull, you push with your right and pull down with your left.

Yeah.

So Al, what's the allure of rock fishing?

It's just so raw, isn't it?

Well, it's dangerous.

It is certainly dangerous, but it's calculated, you know,

and if you do all the procedures correctly it's quite safe.

Just facing the ocean and knowing that civilisation is there

and you're just facing the wide blue,

it's something, ah, fantastic about that.

And you can catch dinner too. Exactly right.

I never get bored with it. I can see why.

Yeah. Look at that!

This is a little snapper.

Wow! How exciting!

Hey! Lovely!

Wow!

Look at that, nice little platey.

That's a nice little snapper, isn't it? About 35 cm.

Aaaw. (Laughs)

So, he's still alive? Yeah? Absolutely.

That is a typical plate-size snapper for a restaurant.

So it's just great to go and hunt it down yourself and catch it yourself,

and mind you, it is so much fresher. What shall we do with him?

Let's release it, I've got plenty of fish in the freezer anyway.

Yeah. This fish might be smart enough

after being caught today to live to 10 kilo.

That's away, no problems.

With the freshest fish,

there is no better way of preparing them

than very simply, with a few special techniques.

Chef Roberto Castellani was born in Lombardia

and has cooked in some of Melbourne's top restaurants.

Roberto's menu at Donovans in St Kilda

where he has guided the kitchen for the past 10 years,

has a heavy emphasis on seafood.

At home, cooking with whole fish is one of his favourite things.

Were you out fishing early this morning for that yourself?

No, I wasn't fishing, but I did go to the market this morning

and I said that I wanted a boy snapper.

It's a boy snapper? It's a boy.

How can you tell? A big bump.

You tell from up there. A big bump on the head.

I was looking down the other end.

The boy snappers are extra tasty. Are they?

Better than the girls.

Now I had this gutted. It's still quite reddish.

It's very fresh. Beautiful.

Roberto, so what's the first step?

Well, the first step, Guy, is to score the fish, criss-cross it.

You're putting the foil and the paper in there.

Yes, this is almost like a stand.

You're going to stand the fish up. I'm standing the fish up.

Now, what we should do and that's what we used to do at home,

we used to always put a coin.

What's the coin for, Roberto? I'm curious.

The coin is to thank God for the fish.

A dollar? He's going to throw that back at us!

All right, now we put our beautiful herbs on.

So what I'll do, I'll just quickly chop some parsley.

You're like me, you always use the flat leaf parsley?

Yeah, the continental.

Sicilian oregano is very heady, it's quite strong.

You don't need much of it.

We've got some chilli flakes here, dried chilli flakes,

and also accompanying that, I've got some Sicilian olive oil

which is beautiful and strong.

Very fruity. Fruity.

More fruity than the northern oils. More so.

Some sea salt. Sea salt.

And now we're doing some painting. Si. Si.

That's all we have to do is just paint it.

It looks very tasty already. It's delicious.

Now how hot is the oven you put it in?

The oven? 180.

And, 30 minutes? About 30 minutes, Guy, yep.

That's all you need. For this size fish.

It's a good fit for that oven! Perfect.

Magnifico!

How many chefs does it take to move one fish?

Ah, thinking two.

I usually leave the paper on. Oh, right.

I just put these leaves around here.

I'm going to make a quick dressing, 2 parts olive oil, 1 part vinegar.

Red wine vinegar?

Salt, and just a little bit of pepper.

Smell that fish. It smells divine. Sensational, isn't' it?

For a minute there I thought I was in Sicily.

Siracusa. Mamma mia.

I'm very excited. Excuse the fingers.

You can see the fish is quite... still intact.

Still quite... just cooked. Beautiful.

Mmm!

Will I cut some more for you? Please do.

It's delicious, so delicate, so delicate

and the seasonings that are on there,

rather than overpower the fish,

they're actually just enhancing the flavour of the fish

really, really nicely.

The main event is the fish. You don't need anything else.

This is delicious.

Luciana, tell me about taralli, what's the history?

Taralli started basically

out of leftovers bread dough

so the style they have in Naples is with the almonds and the pepper,

and if you go to Puglia

they will have with olive oil and with fennel seeds.

Yeah, I love those.

So it is very beautiful little snack to be made.

Venetian-born Luciana Sampogna

is following in the footsteps of two Italian cooking-school teachers

who changed her life.

Inspired and taught by Bologna's Simli sisters,

she set up a cooking school in her Sydney home,

teaching small groups the secrets of pasta, bread, pizza

and the adored Italian snack taralli.

So, plain flour, and we will open up a little hole

and that's where we call the salt house.

That's cute!

Now here it comes the yeast.

If the yeast goes near the salt

If the yeast goes near the salt

it will slow everything.

We will start now adding the water here,

but getting flour slowly

and then is the time to add the lard.

So as a classic Italian cook, you say don't be afraid of the lard.

So as a classic Italian cook, you say don't be afraid of the lard.

I don't think you should be afraid of anything.

Now we add the salt.

Now we add the salt.

Okay, may I ask you to just pepper, pepper, pepper,

pepper, pepper, pepper. Pepper, pepper.

There you go.

More, more, more, more. More, more, more.

Ooh, lovely!

So I'll cover that now and we're going to see

how the consistency is happening today.

How long are you kneading for, Luciana?

We are kneading until the dough is nice and elastic.

Now we are going to add the almonds now

Now we are going to add the almonds now

because if I'd added the almonds before

because if I'd added the almonds before

it would've been a little bit harder to knead and develop the gluten.

That's a clever way of incorporating your almonds.

There you go.

Okay, this is done now, so now we just cover.

And how long for?

Ah, he has to rest for about 30 minutes.

Good!

We will be able now

to actually slice a piece through

and then we will...

can just make them into little tarallis.

It's the rustic part which is really good.

It's the rustic part which is really good.

So this is a hot oven, Luciana? It is a hot oven 200 Celsius

and it's going to go for about 20 minutes

and then we're going to reduce to 160

that's going to go for about 10 minutes

and then it's going to go to reduce again

and that's the final... really to dry them all the way through.

Oh, they look so beautiful. Nice.

They've all plumped up. There we are.

They're so cute, aren't they?