Recipe: Hapuku and Smoked Bluenose Chowder

We've been getting plenty of hapuku and bluenose lately and a great way to make the most of the heads which plenty of meat still in them, is making a stock and chowder. Here's my take on seafood chowder....

1. HAPUKU STOCK
Head and frame of one Hapuku, rinsed of any blood in fresh water.
Cut frame down at knuckles to fit in large pot
Add:
-Celery stalk and leaves
-Large onion roughly cut
-large carrot roughly cut
-garlic
-ginger
-tbsp red curry paste
-lemongrass
-bay leaf
-Rosemary sprigs
-handful of mint
Heat on high until the head breaks down then add 1 lemon cut into quarters and simmer for 1hr.

Sieve and cool

2.CHOWDER
-Sweat 1 onion and 1 leeks finely sliced in 50g butter and garlic
-Add 1 cup of stock and splash of white wine and reduce
-Add another cup of stock and reduce
-Blitz into liquid
-Add 2 more cups of stock
-Add cup of sweet corn
-Add half cup parsley
-Simmer then add cream and flaked smoked bluenose and diced fresh hapuku

Out Wide with Clarke Gayford and Fish of the Day

Good mate Mike Bhana and his sidekick and Clarke Gayford have been talking with me about getting out wide and filming a show for their TV series Fish of the Day for about a year.

Finally I saw a window that worked for everyone and we had a plan!

The plan was the run North and fish wide of Cuvier for Bluenose and hopefully we would get into some bass as well.

We picked a cracker of a day!

This was Clarke’s last outing before he was in lock down mode, his partner Jacinda is running for prime minister this weekend! He made the most of it first drop!

Next up, target species!

One of the things I love about deep water fishing is that you never know what you are going to get, we caught about six different species of fish through the day.

Final drop was called and Scott hooked into a real decent fish - and boom - a monster of a bass about 50kg.

Back to land for a big old fillet session on the Trailor Made heavy duty fillet bench and of course we had to fire up the BBQ and scoff some fresh fish in wide bread - just nectar!