Mike van de Elzen: Ika Mata

Ika Mata 

Prep time: 40 minutes 

Serves: 12

300gm firm white flesh fish  

Juice of 2 limes  

Juice of 2 lemons  

1 small red onion, diced  

1 small cucumber, diced  

2 red chilli, deseeded and diced  

1 cup spring onion, sliced flaky salt  

1 cup coriander, roughly chopped  

2 cups coconut cream

Slice the fish into 5mm cubes and place into a non-reactive container. Squeeze over the juice of both the lime and lemon. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

Leave for up to 3 hours if you want the fish fully cooked.  

Combine the red onion, cucumber, capsicum, chili, spring onion, salt, coriander and coconut cream, season to taste.  

Drain the fish, combine with the coconut mixture.  

Chill till required. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mike Vander Ellison is with us now our residence chief.
Good morning, Good morning. How was the half marathon? I
believe you've been running the Mirror half Marathon this morning, Mic, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am certainly not running it. I could potentially mountain
bike it, but no, no, no, we're on the aid station.
So our aid station, we're I think we're at about
twelve k of twenty one, so you will hear it
in the background a bit noisey. And we've got we
have electro lights, we have Coca Cola, we have lollies,
and we have chips.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Have you slashed into the coke?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yes? We have actually, good man, now you.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Have to do that. And if you've got good salt,
social sold vinegar chips.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Get that good sold vinegar chips. And it kind of
looks more like a kid's party than a marathon.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what when I did when
I did the Tara wear A Trail marathon, there was
the final checkpoint before the end was extraordinary. When you
arrived there, we was gones with jam and whipped cream,
like the community had gone to town. It was incredible
and it was this looks so good. But it's the

(01:16):
last thing I feel like right now.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
We go.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Someone's hit the Someone's hit the station.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
I love it. I think it sounds like my wife
actually pretty louder than anyone. But it's pretty cool because
whereas you, we're raising funds for the Middle roy pest
control and with the aim of releasing Kiwi into Goldies
Bush at the beginning of next year.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Fantastic. I mean even you, isn't it Your dog's even
been Kiwi trained.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
He has, he has old hectores, he's been zapped by
a zapping collar and he won't be going anywhere near
them because you.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Didn't like.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
He did not like it at all. And those on
the electric fancy only did it once.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh bless hector. Okay, what have you got for us
this week?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
So this week we've got ickamata. We actually made this
in a class yesterday and the first of them. I've
made it for a long time, and it was delicious
and pepet the time of year because it uses lots
of citrus. So it's a traditional Polynesian dish of raw
fish that's been marinated in citrus and coconut cream. So
the fish that you want to use for an eckermata
is something that's firm, something like a travallei snapper or tuna,

(02:21):
and then you cut those in little bite sized pieces
and you marinate them in either lime or lemon or
a combination of both. And what happens is the acid
literally cooks the fish by denaturing the protein and the
fish and turning it opaq and making it quite firm.
Once that's underway, then you just add coconut cream and
a various degree of coriander or onion or anything along

(02:42):
those lines. So I've got three hundred grams of white
ferm white fish cut laid into like five to one
centimeta cubes, and then over the top you've got the
juice of two limes and two lemons. You basically want
the fish to be just sitting in that juice. Pop
those into the fridge, leave them in there for up
to three hours. Yes, say we left it for an hour,

(03:02):
and that like one centimeta cubes was just perfect for
that hour. While that's marinating or cooking in the fridge,
small red onion that's just been die small cucumber diced.
I put in some chili, so a cup of chilies
diceos up a cup of carriy and it delicious. And if
you want, you can chuck in a capskin. They are
slowly coming down in price. After an hour. Just take

(03:23):
your fish out of the fridge, drain out the excess
lemon and lime juice. You still what some in there?
You need that acid, and then add in the all
important two cups of coconut cream and then your vegetables.
They go in a good amount of salt and some
cracked pepper let that sit for another half an hour
and willa it has done. And for people like yesterday

(03:43):
that weren't that they went there in on raw fish.
They tried this echimata and they were like, this is delicious.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I think raw fish gets a bit of a rough
deal sometimes. I mean, if it's beautiful fish. I had
some sashimi recently at an Orphan restaurant and I was like,
where did you get this salmon? And I think it
came from very down the bottom of our country and
it was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
It has to be fresh. And we actually did shashimi
yesterday of snapper and what I did is I sliced
it and then we actually cold smoked it. So we
put into a cold smoker for half an hour and
that and the smoke settled on top of the shashimi,
on the top of the wall fish and gave it
that background smoke flavor.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Where was it? Was it a Stuart Island salmon farm.
I got it from that. They got it from. Yeah, yeah,
I wish I could remember the name and give them
a shout out because there's salmon was absolutely divine. But
I'm loving this recipe too. Might get back to your job, please,
back to making sure that everyone manages to get to
the end in one piece.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.