Sunday, June 1, 2014

Lakes Entrance - Fish, Crabs and Mussels

We headed to Lakes Entrance a couple of months ago when the weather was still warmer, for some fishing and crabbing. It's a beautiful place around 4 hours drive from Melbourne. 

The view rounding the bend before approaching the town.

On our first day, we picked mussels off the rocks

Just like that- the bigger ones were found in deeper water

Come to momma

Only those decent enough to be eaten were taken, we gave the babies another chance at feeding someone else another day

Our haul was pretty good. 

View from Bullock Island jetty

Gorgeous summer sunset

Another view 

They were full of algae, seaweed and barnacles, and took about an hour to clean. I'm not sure the harvesting was worth the effort when Mt Martha mussels are $7 a kilo from our local market, but I suppose it was for the experience.

Cooked with white wine, garlic, butter and onions

Yums!

Seriously fresh and tasty.

The next day we rented a little drive-it-yourself boat to head out to fish

It was a lovely day with perfect weather

Off we went

Within minutes of setting down our crab nets, ta-dah! Success

So many hungry crabs 

Our total haul for the morning

We used super smelly chicken carcasses that had rotted during the drive from Melbourne, and they seemed to have done the trick

We also caught fish, but none worth mentioning

Like this ugly fella here

We bought some prawns and crayfish off the fishing boat at Post Office Jetty

The crabs fighting in the pail- still pretty feisty.

The road to the slaughter

Putting them out of misery quickly and brutally

All cleaned and ready to be cooked

With Singapore chilli crab sauce and egg. Super yummy especially with bread.

We stopped by Paynesville on the way back to have a look at the silt jetties.

Super scenic spot

The crayfish, or bugs, were still alive when we were back in Melbourne after around 8 hours in the boot of our car, so we decided we just had to cook them there and then. The king prawns were alive when we bought them, so we knew they were super fresh too. But they went into the freezer since we were full from dinner.

We stocked up on more chilli crab paste

This bug was flapping. I was screaming.

Ready for cooking.

Possibly the most yummy crayfish ever

Especially with the eggy sauce

Super firm meat...perhaps the freshest I've ever eaten

Another shot of the meat. Salivating now thinking about it.

Since summer's long gone, the next thing to look forward to is ski season....once I clear the backlog.

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