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Friday 09.10.2015 to Sunday 11.10.2015 | Dubbo Weekender
Fishy business BY KEELEY BOLGER ORGET coffee, tea or an icy shower, if there’s anything guaranteed to give restaurant owners Mitch Tonks and Mat Prowse a boost in the morning, it’s their breakfast grappa. Since travelling around Europe some years ago, on the hunt for culinary inspiration for their celebrated Seahorse restaurant in Devon, England, the two friends have continued the boozy morning ritual, which is popular in food markets in Italy and Spain. “We like our little drink in the morning,” says Tonks, laughing. “It’s quite enjoyable,” adds the award-winning chef, who fronted A pay-TV series called Mitch And Matt’s Big Fish Recipes, with former English rugby star Matt Dawson. “The secret is, it’s only one drink, and for some reason, some days it’s better than others. Some days you don’t really get it, and other days you get really quite smashed and I’m not sure why.” While the pair’s customary drink, which they quaff alongside their morning coffee, has raised a few eyebrows, it’s part and parcel of the jovial atmosphere they hope to create in the restaurant, with dancing on tables and musical interludes from their maitre d’ Mark Ely encouraged. “It doesn’t really sound like it’s a very professional place,” says Prowse with a laugh. “It has a life of its own.” Friends since the late Nineties, Tonks and Prowse – whose experience in kitchens began with pot-washing for a local eatery when he was 13 – have just released a new recipe book, aptly named The Seahorse, based on the dishes they serve in their restaurant. And while they are both knee-deep in seafood these days, this wasn’t always this case. “I was working as a head chef at a restaurant in Bath and Mitch came to sell me fish,” explains Prowse of how their partnership began. “He set up his fishmongers there after giving up his previous life as an accountant. He came into the restaurant one day, trying to sell me fish, and that was it, we just hit it off. We decided to start running cookery classes.” While he and Tonks, who “wasn’t having a great time” as an accountant and quit aged 27, bonded over their love of seafood, they’re well aware that many people don’t share their enthusiasm for fish. “It smells. It’s full of bone. It’s going to stick in your throat and you’re going to be dragged to hospital to get rid of it,” exclaims Prowse, with a weary sigh. “Everything you hear about fish, whether it’s sustainability or cooking it, is all negative. But it’s not. It’s an easy thing to cook. Very simply with the sustainability thing, just find yourself a good fishmonger and trust they’re doing that bit for you. “Buy the freshest fish you can find, cook it really simply and you’ll have the best meal ever. That’s all we do in the restaurant. Sometimes you feel like a fraud because it is so easy, but behind the scenes it’s not!” Fancy trying your hand at some simple fishy dishes? Here are three recipes from The Seahorse to try at home...
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Mat Prowse and Mitch Tonks. PHOTO: PA/CHRIS TERRY.
24-hour refrigerator vegetable pickles BY DONNA ERICKSON
CREATIVE FAMILY FUN
ON a recent afternoon when my son texted me to check in, I nimbly replied with sticky fingers, “I’m preoccupied with taking pics of pints of pickled...” While laughing at the preponderance of Ps, I accidentally pressed “send”. He immediately wrote back, “Pickled PEPPERS?... ha!” Hmm, OK, so I may have left the peppers out of this recipe, but keeping with the “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled...” verse
that took us back to his childhood, I simply replied, “perhaps”. Word play and food play are interchangeable with kids, no matter their age. Preparing pickled veggies this time of year is the perfect antidote for using and enjoying the abundance of fresh, tender and tasty produce in our gardens and markets. You and your kids can create jars full to stack in the refrigerator in less than an hour for a month of tasty sides. Discover, like my family, that the vegetables will be sweet like bread and butter pickles, but will pack more flavour than the traditional grocery-store fare. Here’s how to “pickle it” all: