Seafood

All fish and seafood have different personalities – clean, oily, bony, rich, sweet. Eat a lot of varieties and you develop a better understanding of how to treat each one best.

It’s a very complex story to understand. The oceans, lakes and rivers provide a vast variety of edible swimming creatures and vegetation, and there are so many methods of preparing and eating it all, from raw natural offerings, to sashimi, carpaccio, to cooked – be it grilled, pan-fried, steamed, red roasted, stewed, poached or blanched. Then there is cured seafood: smoked salmon, salted green cod, pickled whitebait and anchovies, and salted fish. Then comes air-dried seafood products: scallops, abalone, sea cucumber, fish cartilage, fish swim bladders, oysters, shrimps, octopus, seaweeds, squid, cod roe, prawn eggs. It’s a lifetime’s work of exploration to understand it all.

Start with a clear understanding of how fresh seafood tastes. I first like to taste seafood in its natural raw state. Focus on its texture, and the subtle flavours. Then, I like seafood cooked gently – just simply steamed or poached. For big fish, grill them over charcoal, or with various flavour combinations in stews. Air-dried treasures need reconstituting in water or braise them with stocks. Salted or fermented seafood enhance the umami flavours in dishes, so try adding some to chicken, pork or steamed fish.