I spent most of my career working with seafood while running Australia’s largest recreational cooking school, Sydney Seafood School at Sydney Fish Market. I love the quality and diversity of Australian seafood and I’ve learnt a bit about preparing it from my chef friends over the years, we even wrote a book on it! Here are some of my favourite seafood recipes.
Grilled Provençal Prawns with Ratatouille The biggest mistake home cooks make when preparing seafood is overcooking it. This is especially true with prawns which are tender, sweet and delicious when cooked properly, but too often end up rubbery and tasteless instead. My top tip for superb prawns is to butterfly them without peeling and cook […]
Prawns with Persian Split Pea Sauce Prawns with Persian split pea sauce is a seafood version of the classic Persian dish, khoresh-e gheymeh, in which lamb is braised in a rich sauce with yellow split peas. For me that dish is really all about the delicious sauce, which I love with chicken, seafood, or even […]
Char-grilled Five Spice Prawns Char-grilled five spice prawns are a great filling for Vietnamese rice flour crepes, bánh xèo, or served simply with a platter of fresh herbs and leaves – such as perilla, Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, bean sprouts and lettuce – and steamed rice. They can be threaded onto skewers for a barbecue […]
Kerala Thattukada Prawns In Kerala, on India’s south west coast, street carts called thattukada sell deep-fried chicken coated in a spicy marinade. At Nilgiri’s Indian Restaurant in Sydney, Ajoy Joshi bakes his ‘street cart chicken’ rather than frying it and serves it with a green sauce that’s one of the tastiest things I’ve ever had […]
Grilled Piri-Piri Prawns Portugal’s favourite sauce is just as good with these piri-piri prawns as it is with the more popular piri-piri chicken; the only difference is the marinating time. Prawn flesh is more delicate than poultry, so the lemon juice in the marinade may start to ‘cook’ it if it sits for more than […]
Black Bean & Chilli Prawns with Crisp Noodles This black bean & chilli prawns recipe is a riff on Chinese cuisine’s classic black bean and chilli combo often seen with clams, especially pipis. It’s a very versatile seasoning and great with any seafood, including simple piece of pan-fried fish. Sichuan chilli sauce is made from […]
Prawns with Strange-flavoured Dressing The odd name of this classic Sichuan sauce (also used in bang bang chicken) comes about because the combination of flavours is a strange one that shouldn’t work, yet does. Strange or not, the prawns with strange-flavoured dressing are in a salty, sweet, nutty, tangy, spicy, numbing sauce that definitely tastes […]
Prawns with Bottarga Butter Prawns with bottarga butter is perfect for a quick and tasty dinner – even more so if you keep a roll of bottarga butter in the freezer! Use this recipe as inspiration for all sorts of flavoured butter to melt over seafood, meat, poultry or vegetables – or toss through freshly […]
Prawn Laksa Lemak There are as many different versions of laksa as there are cooks, every Singaporean and Malaysian adds their own spin and there are distinct regional variations. Not all laksas contain coconut milk, but laksa lemak always does. Laksa lemak originated around the Straits of Malacca and lemak, meaning ‘creamy’ in Malay, indicates […]
Garlic Squid Spaniards love meat or seafood cooked in oil and garlic: garlic prawns, garlic chicken and garlic squid. I use beautiful southern calamari for this simple tasty dish of calamares al ajillo as I love their delicate flesh, but you could use any squid, mussels, clams, even chunks of salmon, tuna or chicken; the […]
