Most cookbooks suggest that clams need to be cooked until they open, like mussels. Trouble is, by then they’re all but inedible. Just be sure you’re getting clams from a good supplier. The cooking-to-open business is about making sure you’re not eating dead clams. If your supplier is hot, you’ll have nothing to fear by [...]

Okay, I prefer scampi to prawns, but Paul Hogan’s mob has its place in any kitchen, As Hogan said: don’t get fancy with prawns. Cook them quickly, eat them quickly.
Prawns should be kept as simple as possible. No need to deluge them with cream or rich stock-based sauces. Like most of the brilliantly flavoured, shelled [...]

1 clove garlic, sliced finely
2 chillies, chopped finely
1 knob ginger
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
¼ cup reduced tomato puree, or 1 teaspoon tomato paste and 2 skinned, chopped tomatoes
1 kg mussels, steamed and removed from their shells – Save the mussel ‘milk’ and use about ½ cup for this dish, taking care to leave [...]

The only thing that keeps me from buying King George whiting every time I visit the fishmonger is the high price. They really do shine. They’re so beautifully designed. Delicious to look at, delicious to eat. I just wish I could catch one.
Because of its regularly high price, King George whiting makes its way into [...]

This is the story of a mid-life crisis. When idealism is confronted by pragmatism. When you are forced, suddenly, to think about the way life really works.
There can be few greater shocks in a man’s life than to come home and find the missus has been feeding the kids fish fingers from the freezer. Golly, [...]

I’ve never quite understood why they sell mussels preserved in jars. Of all seafood, this is the easiest of all to cook, and possibly the one with the most options to play with.
Mussels are the seafood for those of us who are still looking keenly at our weekly bank statements. A kilo of mussels will [...]

Squid cooked in its own defence mechanism might seem like the ultimate indignity for this aristocrat of the sea. It’s also supremely delicious, and so surprising and takes so little effort.
Squid in its own ink is one of the great slow-cooked dishes of the world. Most often considered a staple of Italian cooking, particularly around [...]

Oyster lovers are allowed to take their oysters cooked, despite what the toffs might think. This recipe came from Toofey’s, one of my favourite seafood joints.
Toofey’s chef, Michael Bacash, is one of the true fanatics of the business. Aiming for one thing: perfection. Perfection in his produce, perfection in his cooking, perfection in his service. [...]

2 scampi per person
handful of chopped herbs – Definitely chives, basil if it’s around, yes please to tarragon.
100 g unsalted butter
black pepper

1
Remove the heads of the scampi and slice them in half along their length. Remove the waste tract.
2
Soften the butter in your hands and mix through the chopped herbs until you have a ball [...]

It’s a natural that the recipe for fish cooked in flour should come from a mill on a river. Plenty of flour and, in those pre-pollution days, plenty of fish.
Professional cooks reckon that cooking fish like the miller’s wife, as in à la meunière, is the best way to cook swimmers of all sorts. They’re [...]