How Murray cod is making a comeback in Sydney

Endangered Murray cod is making a return to our dinner plates thanks to ingenious improvements in commercial fish farming.

Murray cod producers – 12 in NSW, three in Victoria and others in Queensland and South Australia – are farming more than 600 tonnes of fish a year in an industry with sales around $10 million. But those numbers are growing rapidly.

"Post COVID, we can't keep up with demand," says Ross Anderson, chairman of Aquna, a company producing Murray cod near Griffith in NSW. "By 2030 we are looking at growing 10,000 tonnes."

Anderson's company has solved the fish's muddy taste conundrum.

"The problem with farmed Murray cod in the past was that fish were always too small, too soft, too muddy tasting," says Sydney seafood retailer and restaurateur Josh Niland. "Then Murray cod growers worked out how to grow great cod," he says.

Muddiness in fish is caused by a compound produced by algae and bacteria called geosmin and MIB. They accumulate in the flesh and, although harmless, cause an unpleasant earthy taste.

"We got water health right," says Anderson. His Murray cod are raised in some 40 dams spread across different farms, all fed by waters of the Murrumbidgee.

"Our team worked out how to get all the right microscopic algae and bugs working together so they keep the water clean. Clean water equals clean tasting fish."

According to Niland, "These farmed Murray cod taste just like the wild-caught cod we used to get when I was an apprentice years ago."

Commercial fishing in the Murray-Darling basin was banned in 2000 by the NSW Government after more than a century of overfishing, and environmental degradation saw numbers plummet.

According to the Good Food Guide editors, Murray cod has gone from relative obscurity to becoming a fine dining staple this year.

"High-end restaurant kitchens have embraced Murray cod," says The Age Good Food Guide 2023 editor Roslyn Grundy. "I'm seeing it on menus all over town, whether raw in tartare, gently set with other native ingredients or baked with brown butter."

The Guide's Sydney editor, Callan Boys, concurs, "I would be surprised to find a restaurant, one hat or above, that doesn't have Murray cod on the menu," he says. "It is delicious, and in the past five years, the quality has gone through the roof, and it has become so readily available."

"The fish farmers finally nailed it," says chef Aaron Turner from Igni in Geelong, west of Melbourne. He is known for a dish of Murray cod rubbed with emu bush, wrapped in young cabbage leaves, grilled over river red gum coals and served in a golden chicken broth enriched with rendered cod fat. Turner says the fat component of the fish, a large portion nestled inside the stomach cavity, can be rendered and used in the kitchen like duck fat. "It tastes so clean," says Turner. "It tastes like the river."

Five places to try Murray cod in Sydney

Charcoal Fish, Rose Bay and Saint Peter, Paddington

Acclaimed chef and fish enthusiast Josh Niland considers Murray cod to be the seafood equivalent of pork.

"There has never been a better time to taste this really unique fish," Niland says.

Niland use every part of the Murray cod at Charcoal Fish and Saint Peter, from the fat (cured in salami and rendered for roast potatoes and caramel ice-cream); to the bones (roasted and transformed into a gravy for the rotisserie cod roll); to the roe (processed, salted and turned into caviar).

charcoalfish.com; saintpeter.com.au

SixPenny, Stanmore

Head chef Tony Schifilliti (formerly of Barangaroo's Cirrus) uses Aquna Murray cod as the restaurant's main fish, depending on availability.

"The reason I chose Murray cod is because of its consistency," Schifilliti says. "It's a sustainably farmed product available all year round and is, in my opinion, one of the tastiest fish on the market."

Schifilliti dries whole fish in the cool room before filleting. The fillets are then pan-roasted, basted in butter and brushed with their own rendered fat.

sixpenny.com.au

Firedoor, Surry Hills

Not enough Australians eat the "quintessential Australian fish", says Firedoor head chef Lennox Hastie.

"It comes to life over a wood-fired grill: it's skin rendered glassy and crisp like pork crackling making way to its rich, gelatinous flesh with clean, sweet, earthy notes."

"By supporting sustainable Murray cod aquaculture we will be able to ensure that this species continues to survive and to be enjoyed by future generations."

The Firedoor menu currently features Murray cod grilled over paperbark with a pil-pil (sauce) made from the bones, charred butter beans, peas and desert lime.

firedoor.com.au

Oncore by Clare Smyth, Barangaroo

Murray cod is frequently featured on the menu of this fine dining restaurant.

Head chef Alan Stuart says it's a pleasure to be able to share "such a unique native fish" thanks to the work of sustainable NSW fisheries.

"The Oncore by Clare Smyth Murray cod dish takes inspiration from a dish we used to serve at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay when Clare Smyth was head chef," Stuart says.

"At the time, the fish used was halibut [but we wanted] to find a similar Australian fish for the dish when chef Clare visited in August.

"We currently cook the Murray cod over fire and serve it alongside a ras el hanout broth, Fraser Island crab and finger lime."

crownsydney.com.au