today we're in Te Tai Tokerau Northland and this video is going to be
all about seafood we're going coast to coast for seafood
feasting we are traveling from the top of the North Island of New Zealand
right down to the bottom of the South Island to find you the best
food we're journeying from the top to the bottom of Aotearoa New Zealand
taking you into the heart of our country's incredible food culture
this New Zealand food series will take you into the kitchens of New Zealand's
favorite restaurants behind the scenes of New Zealand's most
iconic foods onto boats and into farms and together
we'll gather and cook New Zealand's unique food this video
revolves around kaimoana seafood and kicks off at the top of Te Ika-a-
Māui the North Island we take you into a
family business producing mouth-watering smoked fish
marvel at the team's expert knife skills take a peek into the smokehouse
and learn how they create their delicious smoked fish before we head to an
unmissable fish and chip shop serving up local pātiki flounder caught
that morning you don't want to miss this series hit
subscribe and get ready for some mouth-watering food
I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry
let's eat
our first stop in the van this morning is for
smoked fish we've found a place that looks like absolute
smoked fish mecca it is called Apatu Aqua it is just up here in this beautiful
setting we've got the ocean out in front of us all this countryside this place
looks insane so let's go track it down
we've just jumped out of the van at Apatu Aqua and
the smell in the air is just redolent of smoked fish
it smells incredible let's get seeing what they've got uh smoking up
we've just met Hamish and Nichola who own this business
and Hamish is going to give us a little tour of the property
so Apatu Aqua smoke a whole range of fish
local fish as well as stuff that comes up from the south like salmon
and we've got here just tubs and tubs full of smoked fish so we've got
uh mānuka smoked trevally here is some salmon wings here Hamish
and I were just talking about how snacking on smoked salmon wings is like
eating chips they're so good there's marlin there's eel there's kingfish it's
like it is absolute heaven in here
I'm so excited so we're standing um right in front of the smoke house
so the fire is going in there so just trays and trays of fish the smell
wafting out of here is incredible so local wood is used to to smoke the
fish and it's hand smoked essentially it's a
labor of love the guys get up at 2 a.m to start stoking the fires and
then they use local mānuka so you probably know mānuka
from mānuka honey
so it gets lit and stoked at 2am and then it's a really slow process and
they just maintain that really gentle heat
they're turning the the fish every few hours so
the ones at the top will get um brought down to the bottom
so that you get this nice even smoking oh wow
honestly i can't tell you the beautiful gentle heat from the fire
is just transforming that fish i can't wait to eat this
so these guys smoke up to about 250 kilos of fish
every day in this smokehouse and there's all sorts so
there's um mullet there's snapper there's um what else was there Hamish?
so kahawai is that that fish that Thomas caught
up north in the first video that we posted in this series
and um Hamish was just saying that people can bring their own private
catches in to Apatu Aqua and then get it smoked up and
then take it home which is a really neat and special thing to do
so we're in the part where all the fish filleting and the brining happens this
is kahawai
in the tub's here and it's going to be
brining for a few hours and the guys are going to filet one up for us and show
us how it's done
tough heads these kahawai's eh
let's cut it down the backbone and slice it to the center bone
and then I just cut straight through it
and then pull out all the gutses and take the gills out
in there
it's really neat seeing the whole process of
being in the in the processing shed here where they're
cutting down the fish brining the fish uh deboning the fish over here
filleting up the snapper so there's so many different species they're
working with and obviously each species different process
they're just it's amazing how they let us come in here
and check it all out
Hamish has just cracked open a packet of the mānuka smoked salmon
wings oh man it feels beautiful just pull a bit of that out
okay oh wow
holy moly it literally melts in your mouth and it has the most
beautiful smoky flavor it's not overwhelming
it is just the perfect amount of smokiness and the
fish is so moist
so the guys here have a little shop where you can buy the product
straight from the smokehouse and so we have got ourselves a
huge box of smoked fish smoked treats that we're going to tuck into when we
get back to the van but if you want to be getting into this
stuff and you do you can come here and buy it straight
from the source which is really neat
back on the road after the most incredible
visit to Apatu Aqua I mean unreal seeing smoked fish on that sort of scale
and the team so passionate about what they're doing and
we have a bin full of different smoked fish
products so we're gonna go find some more
ingredients and we're gonna get into that for
lunch so let's get into this fish
we've driven a small ways up the road we've pulled over for lunch now so let's
check out what we've got so we've purchased
a bunch of stuff and they were super kind and threw in
a whole lot more for us so we have a bin filled with different products look
how much stuff we've got it's unreal so we've got some of the smoked
fish roe so that's a kahawai roe we've got the smoked salmon got some gemfish
that's a really interesting uh quite a deep sea fish big long fish
kingfish that looks beautiful the color in the kingfish
got a smoked piece of snapper snapper is a very popular fish here in New Zealand
they gave us some fresh snapper as well so they also have
a commercial fishing operation so they have a boat
and they go out and catch a bunch of the fish that they smoke but they also sell
fresh snapper so we've got some beautiful pieces of fresh snapper there
we've got the smoked eel so these gorgeous pieces of smoked eel
we've got the tuna like beautiful piece of
local tuna so that tuna is caught right up here in the North Island of New Zealand
we've got smoked fish pate that's made with kingfish
we've got smoked salmon and herb pate we've got smoked
eel pate and then in the bottom here is a whole mullet just sitting in the
bottom of this tub so that's wrapped up but a
whole whole entire mullet smoked we're gonna have to make some choices
about what we eat
we have laid up a spread for our lunch
now obviously we could not manage to eat all of that in one go so we've had to
pick a few things to have and we wanted to eat it very simply so
we popped into a local bakery we've got a loaf of bread so we're
keeping it very simple bread onions lemon salt and pepper and we're
going to eat the kingfish because that just looks
unreal that's a very prized fish here in New Zealand not something we get
to eat very often the snapper so the smoked snapper and snapper
is probably the most common caught fish in New Zealand and in
the North Island it's very very prevalent that is the most
targeted species and it is an amazing fish very popular
and we've got this whole mullet to have and this is a fish that neither of us
have ever eaten and a couple of the pates so
we've got the smoked eel pate and the smoked fish pate
so let's dive into this food
this is a feast fit for a king i'm very excited to try the mullet so the mullet
was the stuff that was um in the smokehouse at the when we were
there heaps of mullet heaps of it um and we've got the whole
mullet here so i've got some snapper
wow the fish just comes away beautifully the snapper is so sweet smokiness is not
overriding wow that is perfect and it's so nice and
dry they put a lot of effort in to getting the moisture away from the
fish so it's very now when i say dry i don't mean dry in a
bad way i mean dry just like smoke smoked fish should be mm-hmm that is
sensational the smokiness just infuses the fish in
such a beautiful way it's subtle but it's also really present
and the flesh is so moist so we've got this beautiful fresh bread
and we just want to load up with the bread and the fish and the onions the
lemon keep it very simple and i love this
about New Zealand these small producers and getting access to that and the
quality of stuff that they're churning out
i've got the kingfish here you could see how much
love and care went into the food and you can taste it
in the food it's often the way isn't it when something
tastes amazing it's because the story behind it
means a lot and the people have put time and love into making it you could tell
from the team they were awesome people very special people
okay truly unbelievable this is the smoked eel pate so the stuff
that Nichola makes and she said it's been flying out the door it's so popular we
were very excited to try this one because
eel is eaten a lot here in New Zealand, jump on in, on my cracker
eaten a lot by the Māori here in New Zealand so the indigenous
people of New Zealand very popular food and to have it in a pate
is pretty special so Nichola uses just local ingredients to make it it's got a
cream cheese base just stuff from her garden it's
so beautiful everything on this table tastes
amazing everything is championing the fish wow
unbelievable lunch
we've packed up the dining room so this is one of the joys of van life you can
eat and then your house is on the road so we're we're
moving locations we're going from the east coast of
the North Island now to the west coast and we're going to the Hokianga
harbour but it's still going to be all about seafood but a totally different
style we're going after fried seafood now so
there's a really neat looking fish and chip shop which does some real
specialties so we're heading over to the west coast to
the Hokianga for some seafood at a fish and chip shop
we've made it to our next stop and this is a beautiful little town right here on
the Hokianga harbour so a gorgeous harbour and the town is called Rawene
and here is the fish and chip shop that we want to visit so we've just parked up
gone for a walk around the town while we've waited for them to
open up and it's such a neat little town there's a lot of history here
and a neat little thing they have actually is a car ferry which takes you over to
the other side of the Hokianga so all these people are lined up waiting to
get on the car ferry to take them over so you don't have to go for a
massive drive right around the head of the harbour but the fish and chip shop's
meant to be open right now so let's go check it out
so there's the fish and chip shop up here they've opened up they've got the
big open flags outside now and this one here is what we're after so
we want to have the flounder and chips oh yeah
the thing you have to eat in New Zealand is of course fish and chips fish and
chips are one of our national dishes but here in Hokianga what you need to
order is flounder and chips the Hokianga harbour
has a lot of flounder flounders is a flat fish and it comes in fresh off the boat
from a local guy who catches it they bring it up to the fish and chip shop
and fry it up so that's what we're going to order Hokianga flounder with chips
awesome, two flounders? um well how water how big are they
so they're fresh and um fresh as
this is a very neat very classic fish and chip
shop so you've got the old sort of school tables
um all the old cutlery but the best bit about this fish and chip shop is the
library so down here is the the library returns for the town so the library
and fish and chip shop all in one place it's very neat little shop and it's a
super cold day so you walk into a fish and chip shop
with the fryer going smells good it's warm can't wait for
this flounder and chips
so the flounder is right here and it's a flat fish so it lives on the bottom of
the ocean so has a little eye on side of the head
it's been floured battered up straight into the hot oil bubbling away
chips are on the go super golden bring it on
how good does the flounder and chips look so beautifully
golden the smell is unreal we've got the classic New Zealand Wattie's tomato sauce
to go with it we've got the pile of chips underneath we've got the flounder
on top and a slice of lemon so i'm going to
drench it in the lemon man that is a juicy wedge of lemon get the lemon all
over the flounder and let's just crack right on in
oh look how it comes away the fish is insanely soft
oh oh wow oh man it's so hot
so delicate that fish oh wow super delicate
very very sweet chip
perfect chips golden small crunch on the outside pillowy in
the inside but it's all about this flounder i'm
just gonna rip right in with my hands oh my god it's so hot
whoa it's hot okay
oh flounder is a very special fish it's soft and sweet and delicate
it's just beautiful to eat and the fact that it's come from there
so they've they get the fish right from the harbour the fisherman who
gets it lands the fish right here at the boat ramp
so from the harbour to here is about 10 meters
look how moist it is you can just see as i pull that off with my fingers
how moist the fish is it's so fresh just completely flaking falling to bits so
um oh and the batter is super dry so there's no stodginess in the batter it's
a very special place to have this flounder and
chips as well because there's a lot of history in this little town
uh Kupe who is the first Polynesian explorer to come here so the ancestor of
all the Māori so the indigenous people of New Zealand
landed in the Hokianga harbour and here near this town
and this was one of the first European settlements in New Zealand as well so
there's a lot of history on both sides of the scale there
and man it is a special special place to have a meal like this
flounder straight from the harbour expertly cooked
sweet juicy delicious fish and sitting here which is unreal and i
must say thank you very much to the staff for letting us film
and also letting us sit here this is actually their private smoko
area so they've let us come out sit out here so we can enjoy the view while
we're filming so super thankful to them for this amazing food and this amazing
scenery what a way to wrap up what has been a huge seafood day here in
Northland going from coast to coast so the east coast all the
way here to the west coast to the Hokianga to finish with this
flounder and chips i mean what a day of seafood unbelievable