Opening a thread to share smoking recipes for local species from Perth. Feel free to add your 2c worth - I wanna gain some more knowledge and share mine with others.

I have been smoking Herring a few times a year for a while now and I smoked some last week Here's my recipe / method:

I like to brine my fish before drying them out in the fridge. I usually brine them for at least 4 hours, but I prefer to soak them overnight. 

Brine recipe: 

2L water

1/3 cup salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 heaped tbsp pickling spice

1-2 tsp ground white pepper

2 tsp chilli powder / flakes

2 tsp minced garlic

2-3 bay leaves

1 shot glass Washyoursister sauce

1 shot glass Soy sauce 

Heat well on a low flame to dissolve all the ingredients and bring out the flavours from the bay leaves. Ones it's almost boiled, kill the heat and let cool down - I usually transfer into a container and put in the freezer if I'm in a rush. 

Once the brine is cool - I take my Herring which are whole, gutted, scaled and gilled, and lay them in a airtight Tupperware / Sistema style container large enough for 4-6 fish to sit without bending them and add the brine solution. Into the fridge 4 hours minimum, 12-18 hours seems to work better IMO. 

Once brined, I remove them and dry them with paper towel thoroughly  and use a toothpick to hold the cavity open by splaying the fish open at the wings. I leave them uncovered in the fridge upright for a couple of hours until they are tacky to touch on the outside. 

I get a pair of roasting pans and an oven rack ready on top of my little gas cooker or BBQ hotplate. I take 1-2 cups of smoking chips - Cherry and Alder is my.new favourite - and soak in a 3:1 mix of water and vinegar for a few minutes and drain them off. I scatter them evenly in one of the roasting pans and then place the oven rack on top. A very light brush of olive oil on the rack stops the fish sticking too much. I place the fish on the rack and usually have them upright again. Gas on, a low-medium flame lit and ~ 15-20 minutes and then flame off and wait 5-10 minutes for the smoking to stop. I definitely prefer to fridge them and consume when cool as I like the texture and taste more that way, but you can have them straight off the rack if you like. 

And there you go - my way to smoke local caught Herring. This also works great for Tailor, Snook and Mullet - I tried a Bream and a Tarwhine once but I didn't like them this way. 

Cheers, and hope to read some of your recipes here. 

 my son and i managed to drag these suckers yesterday out of a creek after a mate lent me his dingy for the day. We havent had much experience in cooking muddies, and we are just wanting to boil or steam them. So i was wondering what kind of time to either boil or steam them?

hey guys.

got a couple of baldies yesterday whcih we are cooking up for some friends tonight.

missus wants to deep fry them to do fish and chips, but seems a bit of a waste of such good fish to me.

anyone have any good recipes whcih will do the fillets justice? if it was just us i would just go a bit of butter and salt, but the wife wants to do something abit more fancy. wasnt able to find much on the search.

Cheers!!

 Quick bacon run tried a couple different recipes, came out nice. Last batch slightly salty, didn't bother me. Chopped most of the fat off prior to brine also soaked this batch in freshwater for 12 hours and dropped salt level to 40. Have some in whisky, honey and brown sugar will see how that goes. 

hey guys, finally caught a dhu on the weekend, so though i would share this.

kept the swim bladder, opened up and cleaned it.

salted, then rinsed, then salted again, then shallow fried in oil.

tatses just like pork crackling. i was amazed it came out of a fish....will not be chucking these out in the future!

Hi guys.

got some whiting this morning and was thinking of pickling some. I have never pickled anything before, so after some tips.

1) do you have so salt them or soak them in brine first or is that just for smoking?

2) do I need to skin them?

3)roughly how long before you should eat them, and how long do they keep? I’m assuming refrigerate?

if anyone has a simple recipe they can share, that would be greatly appreciated!!

thanks heaps fellas! Excited about trying something new!

goat 

just getting the pork ready before the brine  

2 x main ingredients for sausages next week. Especially when the beef is wild & free

Wild mushrooms & heifer for dinner

 Went for a crab run this morning. Got my 10 in a couple of hours. Had crab sangers for lunch, then had my first crack at Chilli Crab, turned out bloody beautiful.

Month in the cool room & on the bbq then straight to oven. Going to try a whole leg on pizza oven for New Years! 

 Here is a simple recipe I use to make Kingfish Ceviche, it can be done with any fish and is simply delicious!

 Can’t go wrong 

 Here is a recipe I have tried a few times, a Chinese style whole steamed Snapper

 Little Texel X heading into town for a mate!

This years chops & sausages. 

Doing some Italian sausage, pork & cider, venison & a few lamb ones to finish it off.

8 smaller pigs will be chops & roast pork! 

Kids had a great time.

 Hi all wondering if anyone has made their own preserved mulie like the shop bought ones u can buy in tackle stores looking for a recipe good back up when traveling or on the boat any hints or tips greatly appreciated thanks 

A mate caught a 1m dhu on reel force last week and doesn't eat the shit parts of the fish so I got the wings.

Thai dhu fish wings with salad:

Juice 2 lemons, finely chop 1 chilli, 2 tbsp brown sugar, soy sauce, 1 tbsp fresh ginger, white wine and mix all together.

Place baking paper on tray and cover fish with marinate, put in the oven and baste every 10min until cooked.

Salad was simple; spinach, avocado, capsicum, carrot, roasted pumpkin and what every dressing you like, washed it all down with a cab sav.

I only cooked half the wings this time and it feed 2 of us easily but it was a massive fish, filleted right to make sure ya get the belly and there is less wastage left over.

It's a great bit of the fish and the smell out the oven with that ginger was killer.

I am interested to know how to go about this. I was looking at probably five halves per pack and was wondering what methods you guys might use to prevent piercing the bag.

If you’ve got to much Dhu, what do you do? 

Smoked Dhufish Wings Pizza, tikkityboo

 Im just wondering is it better to split whole crays and clean out the crap in the head or just use the tails for bbqing? Also how long on the bbq should they take to cook? Last time I put a few on they seemed to take ages. Cheers 

 Hi all found some good recipes in the search for this site but was wondering what ppl prefer to do with the cray when putting in jar with pickle mix ie raw as opposed to cooked or semi cooked hot liquid v cold or warm any advice thanks in advance 

 Hi Guys

Got an occy in the cray pot yesterday so he got cooked and pickled, turned out beautiful.

Just wondering how long pickled occy will last in the fridge in a sealed jar?

Cheers, Choc.

 This must have been discussed before but unable to find when searching.

What causes parts of the crayfish flesh to go black / grey around the tail when seperated after boiling and what is the solution to prevent it?

I seem to recall vinegar added to the water when boiling?

just wondering what oil people use in there deep fryer taking into account health / taste? I’m sure lard would be the best oil for taste but vegetable for health. I have been using vege oil but just not quite as good as fish n chips shops or how my old man use to cook for me as a kid (he used lard)  What do people recommend? I actually rarely deep fry fish but would like to know the best oil / Way to do it. Thanks guys

 Hi could anyone kind enough to share a pickled occy recipe i got a few kgs and its a shame to use it for bait cheers daniel

 Has anyone had a crack at doing dhuey wing sous vide? 

Boiled  

 My daughter just knocked this up last night, great way to try a crayfish meal when you want to try something different. Usual taco mix but just add cray. She can cook.