Food Safari

The great seas and oceans of the world

are the source of a food

that has sustained us since the beginning.

The abundance and variety of seafood is staggering,

and the cuisines of the world have used it well.

Many refer to seafood as the best protein on the planet.

Welcome to Food Safari Water.

In this episode of Food Safari Water...

wild barramundi from the Top End in a magnificent coconut curry,

one of the world's great seafood markets in action,

cooking fish with Australia's best seafood cook,

squid and its ink taken to the next level,

the pure magnificence of sea salt, and a Sicilian salt-baked fish.

Amazing.

Australia's 60,000km of coastline

is home to over 5,000 seafood species,

ranging from tropical, to sub-Antarctic,

and our appetite for the bounty of the sea grows each year.

Our rivers are also the source of many fish, including barramundi.

Just outside Darwin,

the Howard River is home to crocodiles and crabs,

some of the Territory's most endearing characters...

It'd be great if we got a croc as well!

What, do you need a new handbag? No.

..and between the months of February and October,

spectacular barramundi.

There's a whole heap of snags in there,

and the barras just love to sit in there,

where they can then ambush mullet and the likes coming out.

Terrific.

Billy Boustead and Jimmy Shu have been friends for decades.

Jimmy grew up in Sri Lanka in a restaurant family.

In his career of 50 years,

he established treasured Melbourne restaurants

before opening his Hanuman restaurants

in Alice Springs and Darwin.

Finding local produce has always been a joy,

but nothing prepared him for the delight of barramundi.

I came chasing after this elusive silver barramundi,

and he is the man who produced it.

Billy, tell me why barramundi is so prized.

They're capable of being in brackish water, fresh water,

straight oceanic salt water.

There's not a fish that would outdo them

in being able to have a boneless fillet that you can freeze,

and it retains its quality under freezing.

Nothing outdoes it. As good as any fish.

It's a barra. OK.

Got it? Yay! Yep.

Hey! Beautiful!

Oh, beautiful fish.

I told you this spot was a chance.

So how many kilos do you reckon that is, Jimmy?

It's a nice, good five kilos. Yeah?

And I think if we bless it, we'll feed the 5,000.

5,000!

Good heavens, Billy. With your fingers?

See there. And then you don't make a mess.

See it's all scaled up like that? Yeah!

Now, don't tell everyone.

Hey, Jimmy, can I ask you what is so special about a wild-caught fish?

In a farmed one, you have more or less like a mushy river taste,

but this one, it has saltiness, so that's the natural flavour.

So a wild-caught will always be a saltier tasting fish. Correct.

And a better texture. Absolutely.

Here I'm going to start with the oil, hot pan.

So red onions first.

So you really want to get the sweetness out of the onions.

Caramelise, you know? Exactly right, yes.

Ginger.

Two sprigs of curry leaves.

There is my lemongrass.

And the two chillies.

Ah, the smell.

And the tomatoes.

These tomatoes have a slight acidic taste to it.

It's a sort of a subtle curry where even children can eat it.

Half a cup of water.

Many curries start with a paste,

with a lot of these ingredients pounded down,

but you quite like the whole lemongrass and the whole chillis.

Well, it's from tradition.

You've just got to follow that, and it works.

End result, fabulous. So stick to it.

Yeah.

Teaspoon of turmeric powder.

So we're going to add now the coconut cream.

Salt.

Touch of sugar.

A little stir.

Now, this to me is coming along beautifully. Mmm.

And I'm ready now to put the fish in.

Now, this could take a good six, perhaps even about, eight minutes.

So barramundi does hold its firmness, though, doesn't it?

Fresh one. Yeah. Yeah.

How do you know when your fish is ready?

Ah, you just pick one up and sometimes I use a satay stick,

and it just goes in very easily.

Mmm. So I'm going to serve a bit of rice.

It's always nice to have a bit of rice to go with it.

The sauce is just as good as having the meat.

Lovely.

And we have our favourite fisherman on hand too.

Where is he? Billy.

The order of the fork. Wow.

King Billy. Oh, thank you.

Thank you, Jimmy.

It cooks to just the most perfect white, doesn't it?

Yeah, look at that. It's the purest white fish.

Very mellow.

I can see how you could eat this, aged eight,

and then have a lifelong devotion to this dish.

You catch, I cook, we eat.

Exactly. And enjoy.

Exactly. Deal done.

Oh, too good, Jimmy. Cheers.

Beautiful.

Australia is home to one of the world's great seafood markets.

Thousands of tonnes of fish and crustaceans

from all over Australia and New Zealand

come through the Sydney Fish Market every year.

Auctions are held each weekday starting in the dead of night

so the seafood can be on restaurant tables

and in fish shops by lunchtime.

The auction is about to begin.

The buyers are up there already.

Carmelo Lombardo is the chief buyer for De Costi Seafoods,

one of the giants of the seafood industry.

On any given day,

there's probably about 100 different varieties of fish.

This is what we call long-line snapper.

What I normally do when I look for fish,

is the firmness and colour of the fish.

Also the freshness inside the gills looks amazing.

And watch my finger as I take my thumb away from the stomach,

how it bounces back up.

That gives you an indication that this is a really fresh fish.

A lot of people don't realise

that there are very distinct seasons for seafood, isn't there?

That's right.

We're coming into summer, you'll get a lot of kingfish,

you'll get a lot of snapper, um, ocean jackets are about.

And whilst the season is on, and it's plentiful,

we capitalise on that.

The Sydney Fish Market trading is based on the Dutch auction system

of the 17th century, when tulips were in huge demand.

The price starts high, and is lowered until a bid is made.

It's believed to be a fast way to move lots of produce.

We approximately buy 25 to 35 boxes a day.

And you're bidding possibly against maybe 250 to 300 buyers...

Whoa! ..at any one time.

And there's three clocks going at the one time.

You've got to think quick, got to know your seafood,

and you've got to know what you're actually prepared to pay,

and what your competitor is actually prepared to pay.

The seafood world has always intrigued chef Steve Hodges,

spending time on his grandfather's professional fishing boat,

and then starting in commercial kitchens aged 14.

When I was growing up as a kid, and my grandmother unfortunately -

God bless her - used to cook the Christ out of fish.

So as a kid, my sister and I used to chew it up,

spit it out and put it in our pockets.

And as an apprentice when I started at 14,

I used to always think that, you know, when it was cooked you get halfway through the fish,

and it'd get a little bit dry in your mouth,

and it just becomes the same, the same, the same, the same.

So I started cooking it a little bit less, and less, and less.

And what can I... What's the least I can eat it?

We can eat sashimi, so why can't we eat fish undercooked? Mmm.

Steve's been hailed as one of Australia's best seafood chefs,

and now consults to one of the largest seafood suppliers

in the country.

If we were to throw...

If I was to take all of these white fish here together,

and threw it all under the salamander, threw a bit of oil on it,

five minutes on the timer or something, and walked away,

and I laid them all out on the bench overcooked,

you wouldn't be able to tell me which fish was which in flavour characteristics.

But if they're cooked properly...

If they're cooked gently to set, what we call setting the protein, or undercooked,

and you utilise the skin, 'cause that is your most flavour,

you'll be able to really distinct...

..taste the distinct flavour of each fish.

In buying fish, Steve, what do I need to know?

I think the first thing we need to know is, is it vibrant? Look vibrant.

Whether it be in whole fish or fillet form, it needs to be vibrant.

Scales is a great thing.

Is the scale stuck on? You know, like if you give it a little rub.

If the scale falls off a fish, she's old.

Right. That's a really good...

So you've got to treat your fish like an avocado.

Yeah. Have a little bit of a feel first.

These days, you can go to your fishmonger,

and you just tell them you want it dry filleted.

And what's that mean? Dry fillet is no water.

We don't want a fillet in water. Why?

'Cause generally the water running through the tap's 18 degrees.

Mmm. Fish is critical at 13.

If you had your fish filleted under a tap,

you need to go home and eat it that night.