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The Food of Love... Main Course Recipes |
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Fillets of bream, English mint, fresh peas you’ve just picked, new Maris bard potatoes just out of the ground…it must be summer.
Serves 4
• 4 fillets weighing about 450g each, rescaled, filleted and pin-boned
• 1.5kg (3lb) New potatoes (Maris bards) washed skins removed
• 450g fresh pea pods peas removed
• 1 garlic clove skin left on and roughly bruised
• Sunflower oil
• 4 bay leaves hit the spine of the leaf to release the flavour 75g butter
Butter Sauce
• 3 tablespoons dry white wine
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots
• Pinch of ground white pepper
• 1 tablespoon double cream
• 175g unsalted butter, diced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Mint
• Salt
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed
Method
For the butter sauce put the first four ingredients into a stainless steel saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and reduce down to about a tablespoon. Add 1 generous tablespoon of cream and reduce again until the cream begins to thicken. Whisk in the chilled butter a piece at a time, keeping the sauce just warm enough to absorb the butter. Season with salt, taste and add a little lemon juice at the last minute before serving add the chopped mint.
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil add the potatoes and the garlic clove cook until still slightly hard add the peas and boil for 4-5 minutes until the peas are tender and the potatoes are soft remove the garlic clove and remove from the heat.
To Serve
Put a large, non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the sunflower oil and the butter. Throw in the bay leaves to flavour the fat. Season the fish fillets all over and, when the fat is hot, lay them skin side down in the pan. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the flesh has turned opaque nearly all the way through, then flip them over and cook for a final 30 seconds.
Drain the potatoes and peas and gently crush them with a folk. Arrange the potatoes in the middle of 4 warm plates place the fish over then add the mint butter sauce alongside. Serve with warm fine beans and tomato. Bream is a lovely sweet flavoured fish and if you crisp the skin it is gorgeous to eat. |
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Fried gilt head bream with crushed Ulster potatoes & mint butter sauce
