Salt & pepper cuttlefish

Cuttlefish are closely related to squid and this Sally Jenyns recipe for cooking it salt and pepper style has its roots in Vietnamese cooking.

It is easy to prepare, tastes delicious and this salt and pepper recipe works just as well with squid, prawns and Moreton Bay bugs. When cooking squid or cuttlefish, use a really hot pan and don’t cook it for too long or it will become tough.
 
There’s a video on using paw paw to tenderise calamari or squid in the cooking vault >> More cooking videos

Cleaning cuttlefish

Most cuttlefish is sold in seafood shops already cleaned, but sometimes you can buy it whole and fresh and there are a few caught by anglers.

This video shows how to clean cuttlefish and get it ready for cooking. It’s a pretty simple process, but it is easier when you are shown the right way to do it.

If nothing else is learnt from this video, you’ll see where the cuttlefish backbone, often found on beaches and taken home for budgies to chew on, comes from.
 
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Whole baked fish

In this video Steve Jamieson and Sally Jenyns team up to show you how easy it is to select, prepare and whole bake a fish Chinese style.

Nice little touches are the foil slings they make so you can easily handle the whole cooked fish and the hot peanut oil Sally pours over it and the chopped ginger and shallots to bring out the flavours.

Next time you have friends or family around for dinner, try cooking them whole baked fish Chinese style, they’ll be impressed.

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Blackened Salmon

This is a great Sally Jenyns recipe for cooking Tasmanian salmon, reportedly a good fish to eat for your health, as it has a high content of Omega 3 oils which are beneficial to your heart and vascular system.

Health benefits aside, salmon cooked this way is delicious. Sally blackens the outside by coating the fish with Cajun seasoning prior to cooking and serves it as salmon should be, rare in the middle.

Yet again, Sally shows that when it comes to cooking seafood, simple is most often best.

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Tasmanian Salmon

In this video Steve Jamieson shows how Atlantic salmon are farmed in Tasmania.

Fresh salmon is now readily available all year round because of this type of aquaculture and it’s success has put Tasmanian salmon on the plates of many Australians who had never eaten it.

Salmon is reportedly very good for your health, you see it everywhere in shops and now you will know how it gets there.
 
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Christmas kebabs

Sally Jenyns shows how you can make these delicious king prawn and tropical fruit kebabs, which are just the shot for the hot days over Christmas when family and friends drop in and you want to serve them something delicious.

It’s the nice little touches like using Christmas ribbons on the skewers, serving them on a banana leaf and decorating the platter with hibiscus and poinsettia flowers that really makes this dish look festive.

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Christmas seafood tips

This video shows tips from Steve Jamieson on how to peel and de-vein cooked and green prawns and open oysters.

These are skills you should have if you want top make sure you get your share of any cooked prawns on offer, or want to cook some green ones on the BBQ.

When it comes to eating oysters, they are pretty good mornay or kilpatrick, but opening them fresh and slurping them from the shell, does takes some beating.

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Buying & storing seafood

In the warm summer months, especially around Christmas, eating fresh seafood is a great alternative to hot cooked meals.

This video from Steve Jamieson has a lot of handy hints on things you can do when you buy fresh seafood and ways to store it, that will help keep it’s freshness and taste.

There are more videos from Steve Jamieson on how to select, fillet and prepare seafood in the Cooking Vault.

Stir fried mud crab

There’s not many better feeds than a big full mud crab.

The traditional Queensland way to eat them is to boil them up in salted water, chill them down in ice slurry and attack them with gusto.

This Sally Jenyns recipe is a variation on how they are prepared in Chinese restaurants and is really easy to do at home.

There are more recipes from Sally to help us better enjoy what we catch or buy at the seafood shop, in the Cooking Vault

Crab and Avocado stack

There aren’t many flavours that go better together than sand crab and avocado.

This video shows tips from Steve Jamieson on how to select sand crabs if you are buying them and how to get the meat out of them.

He then hands over to Sally Jenyns who shows a really easy way to make a crab and avocado stack.

There are more video tips from Sally and Jammo on how to better enjoy what we catch or buy at the seafood shop in the Cooking Vault.

BBQ mackerel

Mackerel is a strongly flavoured oily fish that can handle being cooked with other flavours without overpowering the fish.

This recipe for mackerel steaks uses fennel and red capsicum, ingredients popular in Mediterranean cookery and like all Sally’s seafood dishes, the ingredients are all readily available, the preparation time minimal, and the cooking process very simple.

Every week Sally shows us a new recipe, so we can better enjoy what we catch or buy at the seafood shop and there’s a growing collection of them in the Cooking Vault.

Mackerel steaks

This video has Steve Jamieson’s tips on how to prepare mackerel.

He shows how from one fish, you can cut steaks, get two fillets from the tail wrist and scrape the meat from the frame to make mackerel rissoles.

There’s more great tips from Jamo in the Filleting Vault and they are worth studying, as knowing how to keep your knives sharp and fillet fish and prepare seafood properly, is as important as knowing how to catch it.

Seafood spring rolls

Sally Jenyns' Seafood and Vegetable Spring Rolls taste sensational and you don’t have to be Chinese chef to make them.

The spring roll wrappers, seafood, vegies and other ingredients are all readily available, the preparation time minimal, and the cooking process very simple.

Filleting and pin boning big whiting

This video has Steve Jamieson’s tips on how to fillet and pin bone big whiting. This is the second whiting filleting video we have run in recent times, but since our featured fishing video this week is on catching big whiting, we figured it was good value.

There’s more great tips from Jamo in the Filleting Vault and they are worth studying, as knowing how to keep your knives sharp and fillet fish and prepare seafood properly, is as important as knowing how to catch it.

Thai fish noodle cakes

This Sally Jenyns recipe for Thai Fish Noodle Cakes is really easy and tastes unreal.

It’s a good one to use flathead in, so you can look at the fishing video on tips on catching them, Steve Jamieson’s video on preparing them and this one as a great way to cook them.

Every week Sally shows us a new recipe, so we can better enjoy what we catch or buy at the seafood shop and there’s a growing collection of them in the Cooking Vault.

Flathead fillets and cutlets

Flathead are not easy to fillet, but if you know how it becomes easier. Flathead cutlets taste delicious, but are also a bit tricky.

This video from the Brownies Coastwatch Vault has Steve Jamieson’s tips for preparing flathead for cooking both ways.

Remember, knowing how to keep your knives sharp and fillet fish and prepare seafood properly, is as important as knowing how to catch it.

Steamed oysters

People either love eating oysters or won’t touch them.

If you are one of the former, this Sally Jenyns recipe for steamed oysters with soy and ginger is for you.

 Every week Sally shows us a new recipe so we can enjoy what we catch or buy at the seafood shop and there’s a growing collection of them in the Cooking Vault.

Scaling and filleting snapper

This video from the Brownies Coastwatch Vault shows Steve Jamieson’s tips on scaling and filleting snapper.

There is another similar video in the Filleting Vault showing how to fillet a really big snapper.

Both these snapper filleting videos and the others from Steve in the vault are worth studying, as knowing how to properly fillet fish, is as important as knowing how to catch it.

BBQ Moreton Bay Bugs

This Sally Jenyns recipe for Moreton Bay Bugs on a Stick is delicious, yet extremely simple and the ingredients are readily available.

The sweet taste of the bugs is enhanced by the basting sauce of olive oil and fruit chutney and they only take a few minutes to cook.

Preparing Moreton Bay Bugs

This video from the Brownies Coastwatch Vault shows Steve Jamieson’s tips on easily getting the meat out of fresh Moreton Bay Bugs.

It’s a skill worth having if you like a feed of bugs because you want to savour every last bit of flesh.

Remember, knowing how to properly prepare seafood is as important as knowing how to catch it.

Tropical prawns

This Sally Jenyns recipe for prawns cooked in coconut with a mango dip is a beauty for when you have a few friends around for a feed and want to do something a bit different than the usual BBQ.

Like all Sally’s recipes, the ingredients are readily available, preparation minimal and cooking easy.

And it tastes sensational.

Filleting utensils

This video from the Brownies Coastwatch Vault shows Steve Jamieson’s advice on the right utensils for filleting fish.

Having a good scaler, steel and knives is very important and Steve shows a nifty way to store them safely.

Knowing how to prepare your seafood is as important as knowing how to catch it.

There are many other videos in the vault showing how to sharpen and use filleting knives.

Filleting whiting

Catching big whiting takes time, effort and skill and you can watch Aaron Fogarty’s tips on how to do it in this week’s fishing video. But what’s the point of catching fish to eat if you make a mess of filleting them.

Steve Jamieson from Warren Markwell's Deep Sea Fisheries, did many segments on Brownie's Coastwatch on the best ways to fillet fish, clean crabs and squid, open oysters and store seafood.

Sharp filleting knives

So many good fish are ruined when they are filleted.

It really is a shame to catch a fish to eat and not treat it like the delicacy it is, immediately ice it after capture and carefully fillet it to give the best presentation and maximum flesh to eat.

Filleting tailor

To keep the flesh firm, tailor are best bled and iced immediately after capture and are definitely better eaten fresh.

Although they are probably one of the easiest fish to fillet, a lot of people do struggle with it, so here are Steve Jamieson’s tips on how to get the best and neatest fillets from your next tailor catch.

Chilli Garlic Crab

Sally Jenyns shows how to stir fry sand crab with chilli and garlic and like all Sally’s recipes, it’s really easy to follow and worth trying as the weather warms up and fresh sand crabs become more readily available.

As Sal says “This one is the Chinese dish you used to go out for”.

Italian-style tailor

This really simple Sally Jenyns recipe for tailor Italian style is a beauty for camping or on the boat as you can prepare the Italian sauce in advance.

All you need is a few nice fresh tailor fillets, your sauce, a bit of grated parmesan of cheese and a fire or BBQ and you are away. Easy as … and tastes great!

Crumbed whiting

Sally Jenyns uses pepper crackers to make crumbs, instead of the traditional bread crumbs to cook fresh whiting and serves it with a delicious home-made tartare sauce.

The pepper cracker crumbs adds a nice flavour, but doesn’t overpower the delicate taste of the fresh whiting and like all Sally’s recipes, it’s really easy to follow and the ingredients are readily available.

Cooking tender Calamari

This Sally Jenyns tip on how to naturally tenderise and then cook squid, is worth watching if you like a feed of calamari.

Like all Sally’s recipes and tips this one is really simple and easy to follow. So to never again cook squid with a consistency of rubber, watch and learn.

Cleaning Squid

Squid are quite easy to catch as you will see if you watch the fishing video on how to jig them. The big challenge for a lot of people is to clean and prepare them for cooking.

Here's Jammo's lesson on how to do clean squid without making a mess of it and yourself.

Blackened snapper fillets

This Sally Jenyns recipe is one of the many she cooked on Brownie's Coastwatch and is ideal for big fillets of fish like snapper

It's one she picked up on her travels in the USA and not only is it delicious, it's very easy to prepare

Every week there will be a new seafood recipe from Sally here on the Coastwatch web site to help you better enjoy your catch 

Filleting big snapper

Catching a big snapper can be hard enough, but filleting it properly can be an even bigger challenge.

Professional filleter Steve Jamieson from Warren Markwell's Deep Sea Fisheries, did segments on Brownie's Coastwatch on the best ways to fillet fish, clean crabs and squid, open oysters and store seafood.  More of these informative videos will be seen here in the future

Here's Jammo's filleting lesson on how to do justice to a big snapper