A lazy winter's day seafood lunch with friends

Whilst on the subject of braais......I was in the mood to do some seafood this last Sunday and as luck would have it our friends Joe and Annie were coming up from Capetown, both serious seafood lovers so I was in my element. Janet is not a seafood lover but will eat anything that "doesn't taste fishy" such as hake, sole or my famous smoked angel fish. As you can see I need to have seafood lovers around every now and then.

It is winter here on the west coast, in fact this was the day after the winter solstice, so although the sun was shining it was still rather cold. The three of us started off with some delicious oysters from the Saldanha Bay Oyster Company,

followed by fresh mussels steamed in wine, garlic and herbs. As with the oysters, the mussels are at their best this time of the year, this is when you should be eating them people!

My next course was the angel fish, I have a small stainless steel smoker which can take up to six medium sized fillets at a time, a bit difficult for feeding large groups but ideal for a bunch of friends. A light sprinkle of aromat and mixed herbs and a very short time in the hot smoker, served with brown bread, Joe's favourite.

Next one of my favourites and a very underrated fish, mullet or to use their colloquial name; harders. They are rather bony so fussy eaters tend to be put off them, I however, am a seafood lover and will happily eat around bones, picking them out of my mouth in between mouthfulls, they are also great eaten with fresh brown bread,

 They are easily split open to remove the skeleton, so really there aren't that many bones, a succulent snack, after that we had a bit of a break for digestion and to make space for the rest, I had a couple of fresh hake fillets and a kingklip fillet. I am not a big fan of the latter fish, finding it much like fillet steak; bland and tasteless and only influenced by the sauce you pour over it, but "Charlie's Fish Shop" which is literally just around the corner from my house had it fresh so I decided to give it a try.

Dusted in "Maizena", cornflower and fried in butter it was really rather nice!

We made a light batter out of egg whites whipped up with ice cold water and deep fried the hake fillets for a short while,

and there was my plate, with Janet's delicious garlic potatoes, before I added the olives and feta cheese. A very relaxed and drawn out Sunday lunch which I rather think I'm going to do on a more regular basis, us South Africans prefer a meat braai most of the time but fish is good.