We had Pete’s family here over the weekend, and spent Saturday feasting on seafood.
The morning began with an early visit to the Sydney Fish Market. I was impressed with this gleaming display at Nicholas Seafoods…
I’m not great at fish identification, but I did know a few. Atlantic salmon and snapper below…
I’m not sure what the next two were (the silver one might be small tuna?), but I’m pretty sure the large orange ones are red snappers…
Barramundi on the left below (thanks Christine!), and ocean trout on the right… can anyone help with identifying the other fish in the photo above, please? Thanks…
Lunch was a baked ocean trout and a cold platter of Balmain bug, two dozen oysters (half from St Helens in Tasmania, and the rest from Coffin Bay in South Australia) and a kilo of really good local Tiger prawns, served with homemade mayonnaise…
We also had homemade taramosalata…
…and half a dozen loaves of sourdough ciabatta!
Hope you all had as wonderful a weekend as we did!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
What a feast. Them red ones are definitely snapper!
Cindy, the big red ones are, but I’m not sure about the little red ones? I really should have asked.. ;-)
Wow, what an incredible feast!
:-) Mandy
Mandy, thanks! One of the great joys of living on in a harbour city!
Oh beautiful feast! I really love seafood :)
Tes, it was just superb, the oysters were the freshest we’ve ever tasted! :)
That looks so good
I’m not good at identifying fish either- but I do love to eat it!
And the tabbouleh and ciabatta look absolutely perfect with the seafood.
You are so fortunate to live by the sea.
:)
Heidi, I’ve sent an sms to Moo to ask him to help. Hopefully the marine biologist will have some idea, although identifying a fish from photos can be tricky. We really are blessed to live here. My sis-in-law and her fam were coming from inland NSW, so superfresh fish was a treat for them too!
how lovely is that, nothing like good food and company to raise the spirits. what a fabulous fish Market you have in Sydney :)
Thanks Jo, it really is wonderful, although I’ll often shop at Faros Brothers in Marrickville for cooking fish. It’s very fresh as well, but I really like to get oysters and prawns at the Fish Market by the water – sometimes they’re so shiny that I think they must polish the shells before they put them out! :)
Now that fish market is on my photo call list, thanks.
Peter, you’d get some wonderful shots there!
What wonderful looking fish!! I wish we had seafood like that here. Sorry I can’t help identify them. What an interesting looking type of lobster. I had to look that one up, the Balmain Bug. If I was scuba diving and saw it I think it would scare me. It doesn’t look much like a lobster to me. I’ll bet you prepared all the seafood perfectly! I just went to the store and got me the rest of the ingredients I need to make your Tabbouleh. I’ve never made my own before. Hope you have a great week:)
Mel, the Balmain bug is quite little, and a native to the area, I believe. We got seven bugs for $11, so they weren’t expensive! Pete’s sister Penny had to peel them for everyone – only she had the knack of splitting the bug cleanly down the middle and pulling out the tail meat in one piece. Not quite as sweet as lobster, but massively cheaper. Hope you like the Tabbouleh – it’s Mark and Bruce’s recipe from Real Food has Curves – and it makes a great side dish or easy lunch. Have a fab week too! :)
Ooh, lovely. We had a lovely asado up on our roof deck (we live in an apartment building). Our tango teacher/friend and his wife came, as did other friends (friends we are trying to lure into tangoing with us) and we feasted on a LOT of meat. I made salad, potato salad, pugliese bread, homemade peach/honey ice cream and, for good measure? Chocolate cookies. Meats were morcilla (a.k.a boudain noir a.k.a blood sausage…), chorizo, grilled skirt steak and grilled short ribs.
Balmain bug???That is totally unfamiliar to me!
Your feast looks fabulous.
b
Hey, nice to hear you’re putting those new shoes to good use, Barb! How lovely that you’ve had been feasting all weekend too!
We are lucky to have great seafood in Australia. I love the fish in Italy, but there is nothing like our prawns and bugs. Great pictures!
Deb, thanks, and you’re so right! Our fresh seafood is amazing. I’ve also discovered that my all time, hands down favourite way to eat raw oysters is with a dollop of homemade mayonnaise. :)
Oh wow – what gorgeous fish! I think the name snapper may be the world’s most mis-used fish name. Just in the U.S., snapper must be used for maybe as many as 10 kinds of fish, probably more. It would be VERY difficult to id a fish halfway around the world.
Lovely fish, and I’d bet that they tasted even better than they looked.
Thanks Doc! I wish I could have taken a better pic – they were almost glowing in the morning light! Interesting about the snapper name – over here it really only refers to the big fish with the hump (“snapper”) and the large orange one (“red snapper”). Or at least that’s all I’ve ever seen in the seafood store displays…
I should have been more specific, the red snapper of the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico is perhaps one of the best tasting fish I know – it’s very popular – however, this motivates fish sellers to call dozens of other fish, ‘red snapper’. This has become an industry wide disease – I recently saw an article in the NY Times that said that as much as 50% of fish sold as fillets is mis-labeled.
Doc, I think you’re right there, but there’s also such a regional difference in nomenclature that often fish are known by completely different names from one country to another. The coral trout (which is what we think the small fish are) is a good example – my friend Gill in UK thought they might be red grouper. When I looked up wiki, the coral trout are also known as coral grouper, so obviously a very similar fish!
that’s a feast for all the senses..jane
Jane, it was good for the stomach and the soul.. :)
The fish left of ocean trout could be barramundi?
Ooh Christine, thanks for that. I’ve just had a look on Google images and I think you’re right. I’m feeling pretty daft for not recognising a fish I eat regularly, although I only ever buy it in fillets! ;-)
Here is my best guestimate: the second photo left to right is…
amberjack, coral trout, some sort of emperor
but I am struggling to pick up some of the details.
Moo >O>
Thanks Moo! I think the small red one might well be coral trout, although I can’t see any blue dots on it. Do they fade after the fish is caught?
What a great weekend friendly feasting! I think the smaller orange fish is a coral trout, and the other one might be Australian salmon especially as they tend to have those yellow fins. I worked for a fish market cafe for a year, but it’s hard to tell. It all looks incredibly fresh and tasty though, yummm!
Becca, Moo has just emailed and suggested that the silver one might be yellowtail kingfish? What do you think? Since you and Moo both agree, I’m sure you’re right about the smaller one being coral trout! :)
Hmmmm, hard to say, but I think the kingfish has a longer face. We need to go and ask the shop they came from!
Oh yum. Another delicious feast in your household. I love bugs!
Claire, it was a wonderful lunch – we all had such a great time and the sun came out so we could all sit outside!
Mmm home made taramosalata? I love that dip, calories be damned. I find it so hard to resist :P
I know, I know. And this one is made with potato rather than breadcrumbs, so it’s quite unusual!
May be red grouper? Celia: http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v1/110808763/Red_Grouper_wild_Suno_Lapu_lapu.jpg
Your fish platter looks fantastic!
Grilly, it does look like that! Moo and Becca suggested coral trout, which interestingly is also known as the coral grouper…
I am sure my invite got lost! It all looks amazing :)
Well…if I’d known it was your birthday, Tandy… ;-)
My 2 weeks in Sydney starts next Monday and the Fish Markets are top priority, thank you again for inspiration.
Roz, my only advice is that if you’re planning to go on the weekend, go early! Weekdays should be fine.. :)
YUM! I adore seafood…yummmmmmmmmmmm yummmo!!
Thanks Mrs Bok! Our chookies loved all the leftovers!
Absolutely wonderful, I am a bit jealous of such an outstanding fish market, we are deprived here, in the center of the country, but… at least we had a few months break living in Los Angeles… ;-)
Sally, good seafood is so prevalent in Sydney that most of us either take it for granted or just end up really, really fussy. My brother-in-law said on Sunday that he won’t be eating oysters ever again unless they’re as fresh and magnificent as the ones we had on Saturday.. :)
I had to look up what the bug was too! :) I love seafood, but I admit that thehole lobster and shimp bodies creep me out. They look too much like spiders for some reason and I’m terrified of spiders. I love tabbouleh and taramosalata. I haven’t made either in a long time and seeing this has made me crave it now. :)
Cat, I can see how the bugs and lobsters would be a bit spider-like! :)
Argh you’ve got me drooling! Can’t beat seafood with fresh bread (especially the bugs). Haven’t eaten much of it this winter but you’ve kick-started my seafood appetite!
Keely, aren’t we lucky to live in such a great city where the seafood is so fresh?
Will you adopt me? Sounds like an amazing meal. I need to google the bug things though- those are new to me. Really cute though.
Re oysters. A girlfriend and I took a little roadtrip up the Oregon and Washington coasts in college and had the most amazing oyster experience in Seattle. I’ve eaten a loooot of oysters, being a South Florida girl and all. But this was just an amazing meal. And the part we both took away was the favorite topping for oysters. It was this champagne, vinegar (I think) and black pepper granita. Brought the oysters to an entirely new level of fabulousness.
Thanks KK, we’ll have to try something similar next time. We were eating the oysters with champagne, and the combination was sublime..
All my favorites. Great pictures. The fish glistening…