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 workshop, expert home cook Geoff Staples explores what can happen when we look at the whole seafood product rather than just the portion we intend to eat. Starting with fish and crustacean stocks, you’ll discover how frames, heads, shells and other parts can be transformed into deeply flavoured foundations for future meals. Geoff will demonstrate his approach to fish stock and crustacean stock, including the importance of controlled heat rather than simply boiling everything together. But the story doesn’t finish with the stock. Leftover cooked fish can become another meal, another texture and another opportunity rather than simply becoming waste. Recipes such as seafood soups, bisque, pasta, risotto and salads demonstrate just how far a little seafood can go. Geoff’s recipes already demonstrate this philosophy, from fish stock and prawn bisque to dishes that deliberately make use of leftovers. This is about getting more from good seafood – from frame to feast, with very little wasted.

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.