It’s summer supposedly, but despite the thunder, rain and perpetual state of mugginess, people are still eager to dust off the barbecue. Only barbeques in Britain require additional equipment of multiple umbrellas, raincoats and windshields. Due to this every-reliable method of cooking, everyone is all mackerel, bream, prawns and tuna. Despite being in prime season and wonderful condition, suddenly the humble soles, flounders and other flatfish become seemingly invisible. So here’s a summer recipe that takes full advantage of these delicious fish that can be whipped up in no time.
Turbot, lemon sole, plaice or halibut would all work perfectly with this recipe, but in this instance I opted for brill. Poor brill. Brill is like a child named Butch who turned out to be a bit of a weed. Nobody seems to want to hang out with brill. Its dull brown appearance and large size don’t do it any favours. It gets enough attention mind; “OH that’s a brill” they say, pointing, before finishing with “I’ll have two slices of salmon please”. Brill needs a break. Because underneath that dull exterior is beautifully textured, pure white flesh that on its day gives the prized turbot a run for its money.
Last year I splashed out and bought a whopper. I poached chunky fillets in butter and they were to die for. I fried the roes with anchovies and chanterelles. I even cured a bit. This time I wanted to go back to basics and simply fry a tranche with a few tried and tested companions. Cooking flat fish on the bone results in extra succulence and flavour, and it’s really not that fiddly at all when it comes to eating. A few technicoloured, ripe tomatoes, some wonderful baby fennel and a pile of finely grated bottarga and you’re pretty much there.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the brill:
2 tranches of brill, about 200g each
1 large knob of butter
For the tomatoes:
4-5 assorted ripe heritage tomatoes
1 small clove of garlic, grated
A pinch of dried chillies
To finish:
6 baby fennel and fronds
A generous grating of bottarga
A few fresh oregano leaves
Slice the tomatoes into randomly-shaped pieces and slide into a bowl. Grate over the garlic and sprinkle over the chilli flakes to taste. Season generously and combine with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Leave to sit while the rest of the preparation is completed.
Fill a small saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Cut the fronds from the fennel and blanche in the hot water for about 30 seconds, then immediately drain and shock in cold water. Set aside.
Set the grill to medium-high. Place the baby fennel bulbs onto an oven tray and toss with a little olive oil and seasoning. Slide under the heat and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, until lightly caramelised and al dente.
Pour a glug of olive oil into a non-stick frying pan and bring to a medium-high heat. Season the tranches of brill all over. When the pan is hot, add the brill and fry for three minutes on each side. For the final 2 minutes, add the knob of butter to the pan and baste the fish continuously.
Remove the fish from the pan and set aside briefly. Pour in the tomatoes and add the fennel and fronds. Warm through for about a minute, tossing in the oil and butter.
To serve, add a piece of brill to each plate and surround with the tomatoes, fennel and fronds. Spoon over some of the buttery pan sauce, and grate a generous amount of bottarga on top. Finish with a few fresh oregano leaves.
This is a slightly random, ‘bonus’ recipe that came about from the brill used in the last recipe on this blog. Whilst lifting the fillets from the massive fish, I noticed that some fairly impressive roes were concealed beneath the flesh. Usually fresh roes are not something that massively stirs my appetite, and certainly at work only a tiny minority of customers request them. But because of how special and expensive the fish that I was working with was, I was determined to use as much of it as possible. Having never cooked with fresh roes before, I wasn’t quite sure quite how to tackle them. Traditionally you are told to blanch them in water, but this normally applied to huge, bulging cod roes and the idea of anaemic, grey, veiny tubes didn’t really appeal. Instead I decided to cure them for a couple of hours in an attempt to firm them up slightly and reinforce the flavour. Having had no previous experience of handing these roes in the kitchen, I have no idea as to whether this made much different. But I was really satisfied with what turned into a really delicious plate of food.
Making it was a bit of a nightmare though. The cooking process was really quick and simple, but I was fast running out of light. And as a food blogger there is nothing more frustrating that cooking up something only for it to get dark and the photos to look rubbish. I had already made the dish that I had intended for the day, last week’s recipe, and it was touch and go whether the light would hold out for much longer. The kitchen was a mess, heaped with leftover plates and extra ingredients. But I was spurred to seize the moment; I wouldn’t get another chance to cook with the roes so decided to risk it. It was certainly not the most therapeutic bit of cooking I’ve ever done, mostly involving crashing around the kitchen like a bull in a china shop, but in the end I just managed to scrape it.
Deciding what to accompany the roes with was also a bit of guesswork. I hadn’t planned to cook another recipe for this blog, so none of the usual thought had gone into it. All I had was what was laying around in the kitchen. I had bought a beautiful purple and green January King cabbage from the Quality Chop Shop that morning along with some chantarelle mushrooms. These were impulse buys that I thought I would use in my everyday cooking, but they were needed far sooner than anticipated. I always find sauces like mayonnaise or emulsions great in tying everything all together; the anchovies in this batch proved great companions with the mushrooms, rosemary and cabbage.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the brill roe cure:
2 large brill roes
200g sugar
200g salt
1 lemon, zest only
3 sprigs of rosemary
To cook the brill roes:
2 good knobs of butter
12 sage leaves
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 clove of garlic, lightly crushed
A handful of chantarelle mushrooms, cleaned and trimmed
For the anchovy mayonnaise:
1 egg yolk
4 anchovy fillets
½ a lemon, juice only
½ tsp Dijon mustard
A splash of white wine vinegar
200ml vegetable oil
For the King cabbage:
4 large leaves from a January King cabbage, torn
A squeeze of lemon juice
To finish:
2 thin slices of sourdough
Lightly cure the brill roes to start off with. Pour the sugar, salt, rosemary and lemon zest into a food processor and finely chop to combine. Tip half into a shallow dish, then place the fresh brill roes on top. Cover with the second half of the cure, then cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Once cured, gently remove the roes from the dish and rinse before patting dry.
Pre-heat the oven to 200⁰C.
For the anchovy mayonnaise, put the egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, black pepper and anchovies into a small food processor and combine well. With the engine still running, slowly pour the oil in until fully emulsified. Stir in the lemon juice and taste for seasoning. Spoon into a plastic bottle.
Scatter the pieces of January King onto a baking tray and toss in olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 6-8 minutes, or until starting to char and crisp at the edges. squeeze over the lemon juice and set aside.
Set a large frying pan on a medium-high heat. Add the butter and a tablespoon of olive oil along with the garlic, rosemary and sage. When hot, fry the roes for about 2 minutes on each side, basting continuously. Add the chantarelles for the last couple of minutes. Allow the butter to go a rich ‘nut brown’ colour.
While the roes are cooking, grill the thin sourdough slices with a little oil and salt until toasted.
To serve, put one slice of the sourdough on each plate and dot on 5 or 6 blobs of the mayonnaise. Add the roes and a few of the cabbage leaves, then arrange some of the mushrooms and sage leaves around the plate. Finish with a generous amount of the brown butter and a crack of pepper.
Working in the line of work that I do, I’m very lucky to have access to some really fantastic produce. For my dad’s birthday last year, my present to him was a large turbot. He has always loved eating fish, and the times when I was a child and he’d constantly encourage me to eat ‘disgusting’ mussels, get stuck in peeling prawns or cooking things like skate from an early age helped form the foundations for my own passion for food. That night we roasted the whole fish simply, sat on a bed of roasted lemons and fennel and surrounded by clams and mussels. A wonderful and memorable evening. Since then I’ve always wanted to have another go at cooking with a large flat fish, but have never had the occasion. Last week I ended up thinking ‘sod it’, and phoned up our lovely Cornish suppliers at Newlyn. A couple of minutes later I had a sizable brill ordered to wing its way up to me for later in the week.
With the larger flat fish such as turbot and brill there are two real choices to go for. The smaller fish between 1-2 kilogrammes are lovely cooked whole on the bone and make a cracking meal shared with a few people. But the bigger ones are something else, true dustbin lids that you can fillet or steak and still get a proper chunk of flesh from. Certainly something for a special occasion, or in this case, a blog challenge. When it arrived, I was taken aback at quite how big it was. At 2.7kg there was no chance of it fitting into my small fridge at home. So I got to work with it straight away, taking off all four fillets and making sure the bones and roe were kept so that I could use every single bit possible. Ideally I would have cut the fish into steaks, or tranches, on bone to maximise flavour. Unfortunately though my knives just weren’t heavy enough, and I had to make do with fillets. The plan was to cook them very gently in a strong fishy and buttery poaching liquid, allowing no chance of them going dry.
When using fish of such freshness and quality I didn’t really want to confuse it with a pile of other flavourings. So for this recipe I stuck along with tradition and nature, pairing simply with some sea vegetables and shellfish. The smokey flavour in the sauce and the burnt kale was inspired by my recent visit to The Manor in Clapham, and in this dish it adds a subtle contrast to the buttery flavours that I have also used.
Monk’s beard has long been on my list of ingredients to use, but in previous years I’ve found it tricky to get hold of during its swift season. This time around I luckily managed to order some from the wonderful Quality Chop Shop. If anyone hasn’t been, make sure to pop in when you’re next around Farringdon/Exmouth Market; it’s an absolute trove of great produce and gorgeous cooking paraphernalia.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the brill:
2 fillets of brill, taken from the thickest part of a 2.5kg fish, skinned
2 good knobs of butter
For the fish stock:
The bones from the brill
1 glass of dry white wine
1 carrot, chopped
1 leek, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 shallots, sliced
1 fennel, sliced
1 bay leaf
1.5 ltrs of water
For the burnt kale:
2 handfuls of curly kale
50g almonds
½ a garlic clove, grated
1 lemon, zest and juice
Extra virgin olive oil
For the kale and monk’s beard:
1 handful of monk’s beard, washed and trimmed
1 handful of kale
1 good knob of butter
A squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbsp of the fish stock
For the caramelised shallot:
3 shallots, thinly sliced
A good knob of butter
1 tsp of sugar
For the smoked clams, oysters and sauce:
20 clams
4 oysters
2 ladles of the fish stock
1 handful of straw
2 knobs of butter
Preheat the oven to 190⁰C.
First make the fish stock. Drizzle a little olive oil over the brill bones, season well and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until lightly caramelised and golden. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a large saucepan and lightly brown the root vegetables. When the bones are roasted, transfer to the saucepan with the bay leaf and add the wine. Bring to the boil, then cover the ingredients with the water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, then remove from the heat and strain into a clean saucepan.
Turn the oven up to 200⁰C.
Scatter the kale for the burnt kale on a roasting tray and toss in a little oil and seasoning. Put in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until dark and charred. While the kale is roasting, set a dry frying pan on a medium-high heat and toast the almonds until golden on both sides. Transfer both into a food processor with the garlic and lemon and blitz until finely chopped. Trickle in a little extra virgin olive oil (about 2-3 tbsp) to bind everything together into a pesto-type consistency. Taste and season, it should be bitter and citrusy.
For the caramelised shallot, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the sliced shallots. Season well and add the sugar, then cook gently for about 20 minutes, or until golden and sticky. Keep warm.
Put a small saucepan on a medium-high heat. When hot, add the clams and a good ladle of the fish stock. Put the lid on and shake gently once or twice, then allow the shellfish to steam for 3-4 minutes, or until they are all open. Use a fork to remove the clams to a bowl and add another ladle of fish stock to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer. Open the oysters, draining their juices into the saucepan as well. Take the pan off the heat and poach the oysters for about 2 minutes, or until just cooked. Remove from the pan and add to the clams. Pour the clam and oyster liquid into a bowl. Put the straw into the bottom of your smoker and light well. When the flames have gone out and the straw is smouldering, put the clams, oysters and the bowl of liquid onto the shelf above and smoke for 5 minutes. Remove the smoked shellfish and sauce and set aside until needed.
Heat up the large saucepan of fish stock and bring to a simmer. Stir in the butter for the brill, then remove from the heat. Season the brill fillets, then lower into the liquid and poach, using the residual heat to cook the fish. After 5-6 minutes it should just be cooked through.
While the fish is cooking, melt the butter for the monk’s beard and kale in a saucepan. Add the kale and monk’s beard and a couple of tablespoons of fish stock. Cook on a medium heat for a couple of minutes until the greens are cooked but still al dente. Squeeze in the lemon juice.
Reheat the smoked sauce and whisk in the butter until thickened and emulsified. Add the clams and oysters and gently warm through.
To serve, spoon a bit of the burnt kale and almond onto each plate and top with some of the kale and monk’s beard. Add a good tablespoon of the caramelised shallot and scatter over the clams and oysters. Position a piece of the brill on top and finish with a good amount of the sauce.
