A couple of times over the years, my old mate Fred P_ has talked about making barramundi sausages when he worked out bush in the old days. A couple of weeks ago, I finally pinned him down for the details, which I wrote down with the intention of trying it myself when the opportunity next arose.

Here's the bush-recipe for barramundi sausages:

After filletting your barra, get to work on the carcass. Remove the heart, liver, stomach and intestine, including the 'fingers' (intestinal caecae?), and rinse. Slit open the stomach and intestine to get properly clean. Finely chop these 'giblets' and mix together.

Now carefully remove the swim-bladder. Turn it inside-out and rinse out any blood, mucous etc, Turn inside-right, and stuff with the chopped giblets. Tie or close the end somehow (ol'mate didn't specify how to do this!) and pan-fry.
Fred was adamant that he would often give away the fillets, preferring to eat the sausages!

Yesterday, the opportunity to test this recipe finally arrived! There were a few hiccups, eg the whole lot burst open in the pan, probably because I loaded in too much stuffing!, and I omitted the intestines preferring to add the liver from a second fish and a bit of meat left behind after the filletting.

Nevertheless, I can certainly see what the old bushies like Fred saw in this fare. It was delicious! Very rich of course, which would have been most welcome in an otherwise fairly bland diet in those days. I'll certainly be going to the extra trouble again when next we bag a barra or two, if only to 'get it right' and create the perfect sausage.

Haven't told Fred yet, but he'll get a chuckle out of this for sure!