Grilled marron

“Being able to humanely dispatch a wriggling big black marron may be beyond some of us, but this does ensure incredible fresh flavours when cooked over the embers of a seasoned fruit wood such as nectarine. Finger limes are also known as fruit caviar, as the little beads of juice look exquisite and pop in your mouth. Heating them is a clever idea to have them at their best.” Maeve O'Meara, Food Safari Fire

• serves

  4

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  5 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

Ingredients

• 4 live marron
• sea salt
• 4 finger limes (or you can use blood limes if out of season)
• extra-virgin olive oil
• native herb sprigs such as barilla, karkalla and sea blight

You will need seasoned hardwood (preferably nectarine), burnt slowly down to embers

Instructions

Prepare the fire so there are white hot embers under the grill.

Kill the live marron by the Japanese ike-jime method, which is the most humane method, and split longitudinally. Place on the grill shell-side down, and season with sea salt. Grill over the embers for approximately 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, grill the finger limes until the essential oils are released. Split the finger limes and remove the warm vesicles.

Remove the marron and drizzle with some warm extra-virgin olive oil. Place the grilled finger-lime vesicles in the head cavity.

Garnish with the native herbs and serve immediately.

Recipe from Food Safari Fire by Maeve O'Meara (Hardie Grant, hbk, $55).  Photography by Kaily Koutsogiannis.

Food Safari Fire starts Thursday 7 January 2016 at 8pm on SBS. Visit the program page for recipes, videos and more.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.