Fish Tagine @ Garfish Manly

One of the loveliest aspects of our city of Sydney is our harbour. Another is our seafood. At Garfish Manly you can enjoy both, with the restaurant easy walking distance from the wharf after arriving by ferry. And, when you eat, you’ll still be enjoying the harbour view.

Earlier this month, a select group of food bloggers gathered in the private dining room, to preview the new Garfish menu. My friend and guest for the evening, Kathryn Burnett was pretty chaffed to swap notes with her table neighbour the effervescent Alvin Quah (Masterchef Series 2 contestant) as her left hand man. I was pretty chaffed with catching up with Sydney food friends, and most of all revelling in the deliciousness and diversity of the menu.  Though there were a number of highlights in my night, the hero to my tastebuds was the tagine. The Garfish kitchen has graciously shared their recipe with you.

Garfish Tagine

You may use any type of fish for this recipe; however you will have to judge the cooking times accordingly which is fairly easy.

At Garfish we try to use large textured, meaty fish such as Blue Eye Trevalla, Hapuka, Stargazer, Moonfish, Swordfish, Ling or Skate.

This style of cooking also lends itself to whole fish or large cuts of fish on the bone, or even crustacean in the shell.

You can use any seasonal vegetables; a nice waxy potato such as kipfler would work well, even celeriac would be lovely with its slight aromatic nature and firm texture.

We have provided twice the amount of chermoula in the recipe; so freeze half for the next time you wish to make a Tagine or marinate meat or chicken for your next BBQ.

At the restaurant we serve the Tagine with Cous Cous, natural yoghurt, freshly picked and washed Coriander and very finely julienned preserved lemon. You must use your imagination.

Serves 8

1500g fish
16 baby beetroots (peeled)
4 baby fennel bulbs (trimmed and washed)
16 baby carrots (peeled)
2000ml chicken stock
500ml Chermoula paste
2 each lemons in juice
100ml honey
2tspn sea salt
80g blanched almonds
110g green olives
2 preserved lemons (very finely julienned)

Method

In a heavy based large saucepan with a lid (that will fit all the ingredients including the fish) place the vegetables and 2000mls chicken stock.

Add the Chermoula paste, lemon juice, honey, sea salt, almonds and olives.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 40minutes covered until vegetables are well cooked.

Remove the lid and add fish, preserved lemon, stir thourghly and simmer uncovered until the fish is cooked, stirring gently as you cook. Serve.

Chermoula

Makes 1000ml

200g red onions
30g garlic cloves
180g coriander (leaf and stalks, washed and roughly chopped)
300g flat leaf parsley (leaf and stalks, washed and roughly chopped)
2tspn sea salt
3tblspn ground cumin
3tblspn ground coriander seeds
3tblspn ground chilli
2tblspn ground turmeric
2tspn sweet paprika
2tblspn ras el hanout
370g evo
2 each lemons as juice

Method

Put all ingredients in food processor except olive oil and lemon juice, process for 1 minute and then slowly add olive oil and lastly stir through the lemon juice.

Refrigerate until needed.

We celebrated the start of the evening with bubbles – the Champagne bubbles of Veuve Cliquot. The first of the canapes lightly invited: pacific oysters from Pipeclay Lagoon (Tasmania) and kingfish and king salmon tartare (pictured above). The calamari with rocket, date, parmesan & prosciutto wrap which followed brough unexpected combinations and complexity, building a flavour ramp towards what was to come.

With both myself and my brother having cooked in seafood restaurants, I’ve tried and enjoyed, savoured and cooked, my share of bisques. This, blue swimmer crab soup with avruga caviar and horseradish crostini, was a deep and delightful, rich velvety cream of satisfying pleasure. Applause Garfish!

The night unfolded, with the road taking a turn, to the tagine (that you can now cook). And for the final stretch before home, we were indulged with this trio: waffles with strawberries and cream, chocolate tart with manuka honey, hazelnuts and chilli and caramelised banana paris brest.

Thank you Garfish for a splendid night. And, for those of you who weren’t there (and to see who was) you can read more about the tasty tasting night on the Garfish blog.

Garfish
39 East Esplanade
Manly NSW 2095
+61 2 9977 0707