Presented by Fair Seafood

The Art of Seafood is a series of cooking demonstrations designed to help home cooks understand seafood rather than simply follow a recipe.

In this first installation, expert home cook Geoff Staples will be taking a look at Goolwa Pipis – wonderful on their own, but their real magic can be in what they leave behind. In this workshop, Geoff explores how the natural flavours and cooking liquor from seafood can become part of the dish rather than something that disappears down the sink.

Using Goolwa Pipis in two different preparations, you’ll see how the same ingredient can take you in very different directions. One becomes a simple pasta dish, while the other is paired with gently poached fish, showing how shellfish and fish can work together without overwhelming either ingredient. The focus is on understanding heat, timing and flavour. When do the Pipis need heat? When should they be removed? How do you capture their liquor and turn it into a sauce? And how does gentle poaching change the texture of the fish?

It’s practical seafood cooking built around a simple idea: the best sauce may already be inside the shell!

About the series

Across four seasonal workshops, expert home cook Geoff Staples will explore the decisions that make seafood work: how to build flavour from the parts that are often discarded, how gentle heat can transform fresh seafood, how to cook a larger piece of fish for the table, and how raw, cured and lightly cooked seafood can become the centrepiece of a summer celebration.

Each demonstration is built around practical cooking, real ingredients and techniques that can be taken home and used in your own kitchen. The emphasis is not on complicated recipes or expensive equipment, but on understanding what is happening to the seafood as it cooks — and learning to recognise the visual and textural cues that tell you when it is ready. Working with Fair Seafood‘s range of traceable and responsibly sourced seafood, the workshops will also reflect the reality of buying seafood: species and availability change with season, weather and supply.

From Goolwa Pipis and poached fish to seafood stock, baked fish and a Christmas table of gravlax, crudo, prawns and abalone, each workshop offers a different way to look at seafood.

Understand the ingredient. Understand the heat. Let the seafood tell you what it needs.