People of all walks of life love fishing due to a single primary principle. To eat what you catch! Take this element away and sport fishing starts to make far less sense, writes pro fishing guide Tim O’Reilly.
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In recent years, the internet and Youtube have lit up the whole ‘catch ’n’ cook’ scenario. Stars have been born. And the messaging is fantastic, usually denouncing the waste or over-consumption of our fisheries resources and promoting healthy lifestyle in the great outdoors.
On the menu
After many years in the charter industry, one of the greatest pleasures for me is simply cooking a seafood meal for people in a remote environment. I take pleasure in it and try to take pride in it. When you are out amongst the elements, hunting within nature’s confines, the cuisine tastes all the sweeter for you having been involved in it’s capture.
In this article, let’s cruise around the far north to discover what’s worth eating. Practicing catch and cook in the tropics
requires a sensitivity of conditions. As soon as an organism is taken from the water, it begins to decompose. Heat is the primary concern and every effort should be taken to prevent spoiling and wastage.
Eating things super fresh is usually best and it encourages you to only take what is needed. Storing product fresh or chilled is a never-ending escalation of inconvenience.
Most seafood available to travelling anglers comes in the form of fish, crustaceans and mollusks. Some pretty strict rules and regulations govern the collection and storage of all three. Best have a browse at your chosen state’s rulebook (size and possession limits) for clarity as a shoulder shrug doesn’t cut it any more with fisheries inspectors.
Besides the simple rods and reels most fisherman is carrying around with them, those wishing to eat their catch might employ all manner of personal equipment and gadgetry to get the job done. A multi-tool and a sharp knife are two very good start points. Something always needs to be cut or fashioned when you are bush cooking. Hard twigs can be whittled quickly into forks with a little imagination. Paperbark becomes a paper plate.
As nice as it is to eat traditionally cooked marine and freshwater delicacies, jazzing things up a little can do wonders to the finished product. These days carrying condiments, herbs and spices in small packaging can really enhance the flavours of a simple bush meal. A couple of small sandwich bags with salt and lemon goes a long way with flavour enhancement. Wasabi, soy and vinegar in your kit bag helps cover a range of seafood bases.
Fish
A sharp knife and a lighter are my only two ‘must-haves’ for turning fish into food. Without preaching too much, I think most people understand the health benefits of consistent fish consumption. Seafood is generally quick to cook and doesn’t need the extensive hardwood into coals scenario often needed for bush cooking.
A beach or sandy riverbed are two of the safer places for a lunchtime campfire. A quick hot fire made of driftwood or flood debris can see you cooking in no time. We get a bit fussy in Australia with what constitutes a good meal. This is a luxury many can’t afford but in the sparsely populated north, it never feels too hard to secure fish to eat.
Preparation for cooking fish on an open fire/coals can be as simple as gut and gill. Scaling is a great option if you have foil or plan to encase your fish or smoke it above flame or on scented leaves. Much of the richness in fish is within and adjacent to the skin. The gelatinous membrane connecting flesh with skin holds plenty of flavour. Australia’s far northern coastline and inland waterways hold a richness of species diversity almost unrivalled.
By world standards our fisheries are in good health and a busy angler can live off the fat-of-the-land so to speak. The Great Barrier Reef coast adds an enormous buffet to this richness with too many colourful and oddly shaped fish to mention. Our freshwater species count is much lower than many countries with superior freshwater habitat, as northern Australia is seasonally dry.
Experiment with edible fish, plenty of species will surprise you. It also helps spread the catch effort and prevent overfishing of select species. We have come a long way in using every available part of a fish and soon this will spread to cooking species not previously given a five-star rating.
I enjoy picking apart a hole fish and eating all the bits others missed. For example, the tiny bits of flesh surrounding the bones at the base of the dorsal fins is very rich, as is the flesh on the tail wrist. The cheeks and tiny pieces of flesh encased in the skull are not to be missed.
A method I love employing when cooking fish on a beach dates back thousands of years I suspect. Dig a decent sized pit, start a hot fire in the bottom of it. When it turns to ash and coals, place scented leaves on top, followed by the fish on the thick leaves, followed by paperbark (or even a wet mat or towel) then sand covers the edges ensuring no steam escapes. This earthen oven should be left for a comparatively long cook, around 45 minutes to an hour and then carefully unwrapped, the fish gently rolled or flipped onto a platter.
A touch of salt and lemon equals smokey deliciousness. Not a single ounce of flesh is wasted, a fish eaten this way seems to go a lot further. Making numus is another favourite. Simply use a lean whitish flesh such as queenfish or small trevally (remove blood line), diced into small thin pieces.
Soak in a mixture of vinegar and citrus juices, add spice, sweetness, herbs, ginger or garlic in whatever quantities you desire and consider onion and chilly for zip. It can be concocted in a flash and eaten a half-day later, preferably chilled. Serve with beer! Sashimi which is basically raw fish has really exploded in the past decade amongst fishing Aussies.
It requires very little preparation and limited condiments to be absolutely delicious out in the wilds. Fish such as northern bluefin tuna, Spanish mackerel, thread fin salmon and tea leaf trevally are amongst the tastiest in my opinion. The secret is to have them bled and chilled very quickly, the flesh quality improving once it has set firm. A dash of chilled soy sauce mixed with wasabi as a dipper and watch the vultures descend!
Fish as we all know is a delicate substance to cook. You only want it cooked for the bare minimum and this point is reached when the flesh first breaks apart. At this defining moment it will still be succulent and moist, however go much past this point and dry, poorly textured flesh is the result.
Crustaceans
Most people of the north get pretty fixated on mud crabs. And with good reason. They live in most places along the coastline and in the myriad of estuaries across Australia’s northern coast. Cook them on the coals, boil or steam them in salty water. I like adding a dash of vinegar and sugar to the pot, only giving them around nine minutes from boiling. Rinse and clean, bash the claws, eat warm and savour every delicious mouthful. Prawns are another top end staple.
They can be cast netted in a wide range of habitats across the north, seasonally abundant in many different forms. Crocodiles can be a particularly menacing threat to those wishing to castnet from the shoreline or creek bank, so be very careful! You don’t need too many prawns to put a quick feed together.
I enjoy cooking them over the smokey embers of a very quick fire. Lobsters win the prize for perhaps the coolest looking object you can eat. The northern varieties have vivid, rich colouration, giving them names like painted and ornate. They can be hand collected or speared around much of our northern coastline. Around shallow foreshore reefs and headlands and around much of the east coast Barrier Reef.
Crays can be cooked quickly on the coals, being careful to lay them upside down for most of the cook time. Cutting them down the middle before a medium fry in garlic butter is a proven favourite.
Cherabin (freshwater prawn) and red claw crayfish are another two staples of the far north. Seasonally abundant in different areas, they can be either hand speared under a torch at night or trapped in a small opera-house pot with a variety of simple baits. Both have very delicate flesh and should be cooked quickly and very simply and require very little else then a tiny pinch of salt to enhance their flavour.
Mollusks
Oysters are generally quite small on many of the rocky outcrops across much of northern Australia. However, pockets of larger black-lipped oysters can be found, usually by locals in the know. Suitable footwear, a container, a flat head screwdriver and a rock is all that’s required. And usually a couple of band-aids!
They are massively rich when eaten direct from the rock and only a few are needed. Taken whole, the oysters can be kept and placed on an open fire, the cracked seal and a dash of saltwater bubbling out onto the fire indicates they are done. Scallops and other bivalves such as small pippies and mussels can be procured by digging or collecting as you are free-diving. The good ones taste great but some of the ordinary ones taste very ordinary. The quickest of cooks on a small fire will have you tasting in no time.
Mud whelks and mud shells are another two commonly eaten by locals as you venture into the remote north. As with most of these critters, try to concentrate your taste buds on the firm muscular foot and get selective about the rest. Squid (plus cuttlefish and octopus) are the meaty mollusca and can be cooked in so many ways it’s not funny. Mostly taken at night with a spotlight, speared or jigged around bays and reefs.
Besides making fantastic fish-baits, squid and cuttlefish might be flash fried in thin strips with whatever flavours you have at hand. Any combination of salt, pepper, flour, crumbs, herbs, oil and citrus will taste great if eaten hot and fresh. Octopus are a whole other creature. The long tentacles need to be tenderised before being added to the final cooking process.
Finding your Groove
This is a just a quick sample of some of the delicious seafood varieties on offer for those cruising the far northern regions. More and more families hit the road these days, taking the kids for that once in a lifetime epic adventure. Catching a feed and turning into something the whole family can enjoy helps to forge memories that burn the brightest.
Learning the process of catch ’n’ cook can be a long road and happily one you never quite reach the end of. There is always something new to try and something to refine for next time. Everyone has different tastes and there is no right or wrong when it comes to seafood preparation. Trial, error, practice and a spirit or adventure should be part of every recipe.