off to catch everyones christmas prawns

[monoxide]

some of you might already know i'm a prawn fisherman but..
its the start of the christmas prawn run, i leave in about an hour to head out so i'll see you all in a week or so :)

wish us luck and good weather ;)
and remember, if you get seafood for christmas make sure its a local product! that way you know you are getting the best quality and you know your supporting the local industry.

[Ian Robinson]

Drool !!!! fresh cooked Stockton Bight and Hunter River king prawns .....

[gary]

Good luck and go safely!

Indeed, the imported prawns from farms in South East Asia are to be avoided
at all costs. Buy quality Australian prawns!

[GrahamL]

And seafood in general ...I made the mistake of buying some farmed barra from asia a while back .. I swear it tasted like it had been marinated in
river mud with a splash of sump oil.. :mad2:..I'm sure thats not the case with all
farmed seafood products but this stuff was bad behond belief.

[Ian Robinson]

Only thing imported fish is good for is feeding the cat , and the only thing imported prawns are good for is bait.

I don't have a boat so if I want prawns - I visit the local coop and buy fresh caught local prawns - and always ask for a taste test - if it tastes odd - I don't buy.

Steer clear of Coles and Woolies prawns - pretty much always imported.

If I want fish - I go and catch it - can't remember the last time bought fish - probably in a restraunt.

If you buy fish - buy it whole , steer clear of fillets and steaks , check the eyes, check the gills , smell it , if it doesn't smell right or look right - walk away. Some fish shops keep fish on ice for weeks.

[gary]

Unfortunately you may have consumed more than just mud and a little sump oil.

You may be interested in this article that appeared in the Guardian on Sept 21st
of this year, entitled "Nice prawns, shame about the chemical cocktail" where
the correspondent highlights some of the ingredients that made there way into
one aquaculture pond he visited in the Mekong Delta.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/21/fooddrinks.food

[Jen]

:jawdrop: i really really love my prawns so i had to stop reading that :doh:

[monoxide]

thanks for the replies everyone, i just got home today after a good smooth run.
plenty of prawns out there, we did 4 nights and got nearly 6 tonne which is good for this gulf.

i'll have to upload some photos tomorrow night when i get my camera off the boat

[gary]

Good to hear you are back and that the catch was good. Looking forward to the
photos.

We had some fresh Australian prawns yesterday for lunch and dinner and they
were sensational.

Best regards

Gary

[Ian Robinson]

Good man .... I'll have 10kg in 2kg lots , medium kings .:thumbsup:;)

I really must go and a chat with my local friendly prawner and put my order in or some local king prawns , bottle squid and jewie bait sized squid . Beats paying through the nose at the local fisherman's coop or at Coles or Woolies.

[monoxide]

the trawler squid is under-rated, its the best for eating since its been tumbled around in the net (tenderised) but the small ones also make for good snapper bait.

one thing with being a prawn fisherman, i have lots of friends at christmas time :P

the best value prawns you can get as an average joe is to ask for a box of soft or damaged prawns, most are just missing a head or tail or have been chopped a bit by a crab or something so you are actually getting more meat for your money, still the same eating quality as the 'good' prawns just at a lower price

[Ian Robinson]

Apparently the November Hunter River prawn run was a bummer. Need evironmental flows (ie a fresh) to get them into the lower river and out off Stockton Bight.
My local trawler mate has not caught many prawns yet, hoping for a better result next dark.

The Coop in town is selling Kings (thawed out) for $29/kg , look nice , but when I asked to taste one - yuck !!!
Myall River school prawns - about 1/2 as big and lots of teeney weenys amongst them were taste tested and were absolutely beautiful. ($20/kg on Monday)
So Headed up to the Myall River and got some nice fresh school prawns instead , I know a trawler skipper from the Myall Lakes and had him put 3 kg of cooked prawns aside for me - $5 /kg (i'm guessing thats what he gets from his local fishermans' coop), took 4 hours to head and shell all of them and ate a fair few in the process .... very nice.

Prawn sangers today, and tonight before I grab the squid out of the freezer and head into the harbour (if the wind dies down to see if the jewie are about, pretty breezy now so not looking promising).
Got enough in a chilled sealed glass container in the fridge to do sangers a couple of days .... I love summer.

What's the best way of freezing prawns (maybe in kg lots) ? in the shell in tap water ?
In the shell in brine ?
peeled in tap water ?
peeled in brine ?

If I can freeze a heap of prawns , next time I'll take 6 kg of him , as well as all the bottle squid (you have to place an order for them).

He offered to get more for me , so now I have two guys (one here and up at the Myall Lakes) who I'll call on the 19th (on the start of the dark) .

[monoxide]

the boat i work on is a process boat, we cook or dip the prawns and box them up/snap freeze at sea, within 30 mins of landing they are down the freezer

i'm the deck boss so i do all the processing and freezing and all i do is cook them, let them drain then pack them into the liner/box, the box is pretty important if you want to store them for a long time since it stops them getting freezer burn but at the end of each run if im doing prawns for myself i'll just peel a heap and pack them into freezer bags ~1kg each no brine or anything, the most i'd add would be a marinade or sauce ready to just thaw and throw in the pan.

if you are storing raw prawns for a long while theres a good chance that the shell will go a bit black but dont freak out as its perfectly normal, its just a bacteria on the shell, no problems at all once its peeled.

aslong as you store them at or below -18c you wont have any problems
we get the southern king prawns down here, always a freezer full and never ever had a bad one ;)

if you get a choice buy the smaller prawns they taste that little bit better and are cheaper but are more fiddly to peel and dont look as pretty on a big platter. i always bring home 10/15's or 16/20's (grades are prawns to the pound)

[mrsnipey]

I hope you catch heaps, but you can throw mine back.
Prawns + Me = Interesting vomiting party trick.
Hope I didn't put anyone off their seafood.

[Ian Robinson]

Nope - not me - can't ever get enough prawns, crabs, scollops, squid rings, jewie, snapper, etc etc , never made me sick - but then I only buy fresh , never frozen , and catch my own if I can.