What can a former skipper and a fisheries policy expert bring to your kitchen? Quite a lot as it turns out. But while Zak and Tamar's recipes are affordable and delicious, they do come with a side of total chaos.
Earlier this year, Zak Olsen from Moana New Zealand and Tamar Wells from Seafood New Zealand went to an unfamiliar kitchen to try a series of recipes they'd never cooked together before - in fact they hadn't cooked anything together before, and they did it on camera. But the kitchen, the recipes and the experience of being on camera together weren't the only things that were new. One of them had never tried two of the fish species on the menu (we'll tell you more about that little shocker later).
It should not have been a winning combination, but somehow it has been.
Zak and Tamar's Fishy Bits recipe series is currently proving to be one of the most successful things Seafood New Zealand has ever done on social media. People are loving the recipes - watching, liking and passing them on.
Something about this rough and ready pair is working. Do they know what it is? Of course not. They can't even agree on when they first met.
Zak reckons it must have been the Feds Conference in Tauranga last year. Tamar says maybe it was the Seafood New Zealand Conference in Wellington two years ago. Whenever they first came across each other, they do agree that it was at a post-Conference dinner last year in Auckland where they first bonded over their love of food.
"We figured out that we are both Virgos with middle child syndrome and we both love to cook," says Zak.
"We're not friends," says Tamar, which is probably just a wind up for Zak and seems manifestly untrue as they clearly like each other and they crack each other up constantly.
When Zak saw a recipe Tamar had made in the December 2024 edition of the Seafood New Zealand magazine, inspiration struck. He emailed her and said, "let's collab." That's when they started firing recipe ideas back and forth.
Despite all the good ideas, they didn't actually finalise the details of recipes till they were cooking them for the shoot!
Zak: "We'd never even cooked together, let alone cooked these recipes together."
Tamar: "Zak had made the beetroot-cured kahawai before and I've cooked a curry, but we were like, 'Let's go have fun,' the best thing was that despite us never working together before, we were on the same page and everything just flowed."
There are six recipes in the series and they are all incredibly easy to make.
One thing you'll notice in the videos is the use of lesser-known fish species.
Zak: "The number one thing I hear about cooking seafood is actually the cost. That's why when we did this, we went with affordable, alternative fish, we focused on fish that are readily available and underutilised."
Tamar: "When we started talking about this collaboration, we both immediately had the same fundamental idea in that we wanted to make lesser-known fish easy and accessible to people. Nothing pretentious. There's no gels or foams and all that fancy plating. It's just honest food you'd make for your family."
Zak and Tamar know what they're talking about. You'd be forgiven for doubting that - their current roles in seafood have nothing to do with cooking. Tamar is the Principal Policy Manager in the Seafood New Zealand Inshore team and Zak is a former skipper currently working as Quota and Supply Support at Moana New Zealand.
But Zak has dabbled in hospitality, formerly owning a restaurant and café and Tamar did 14 years in food service, starting as a kitchen hand and working her way up to chef.
Zak: "Nothing really compares to hospitality. It's a beast of a thing. But when you look out and they're smiling eating your food, that's your thanks, because in hospo, the paycheck doesn't really say thank you."
Tamar: "One of the really great things that Zak brings, that I don't have much experience with, is the weird and wonderful fish because I was in hospitality, right? So we get in the more well-known fish, but Zak's got all this experience with dealing with the weird and wonderful."
Well, you might think so, but at the end of our chat, it's confession time.
The series includes recipes for blue moki and stargazer, but skipper Zak admits it was his first time eating them.
Zak: "They are fish from the south in my defence."
You can see for yourself how it all worked out. Two of the videos are already on YouTube and the rest will be coming out over the next few weeks (check out one of the videos at the top of this page).
