To prepare sea bass
To fillet sea bass
Chinese Sea Bass with Ginger and Spring Onions
Sea Bass with Sauce Vierge or Beurre Blanc
Roast Sea Bass with Balsamic Vinegar
Sea Bass Carpaccio with Fennel Salad
Grilled Sea Bass with Cucumber Noodles and Sushi Ginger
Gurnard with Minted Pea Purée and Bacon
Fish Stock
Snotched Red Mullet with Garlic Butter
Red Mullet with Saffron Tomatoes and Green Beans
Red Mullet Wrapped in Parma Ham with Garlic and Rosemary
Provençal Fish Soup with Rouille and Croûtes
Braised John Dory with Sorrel
In France they call sea bass bar or loup de mer and regard it as one of the finest fish in the sea. We called it plain bass until recently, adding ‘sea’ to differentiate between the increasingly ubiquitous farmed bass and the real thing. Bass is a sleek and elegant silvery fish and when you see lots of them swimming together, as they do, like the mackerel, pilchards and herring they chase for food, they look too beautiful to catch. There are millions out there in the sea – so no quota controls – but they have a reputation for being difficult to catch and are expensive in the shops. In the summer they’re caught by hand – little boats can catch seventy or eighty a day – but leading up to Christmas they become worthless down here because there are so many. The flesh of sea bass is, to my mind, perfect. It has a silky texture and clean, fresh flavour that is complemented by its particularly rich skin, which bubbles and crisps spectacularly when grilled. I love to cook it whole, either steamed or wrapped in foil and baked in the oven. A grilled whole fish looks stupendous and the burnished skin is delicious to eat. Grilled fillets are good with rich buttery sauces like hollandaise and beurre blanc. It is also a lovely fish to eat raw.
The average weight of a mature sea bass is 1kg, which feeds four perfectly, but they are often landed much smaller than this. Perhaps it is the increased availability of small farmed bass – as popularized by Chinese restaurants – that has led to inshore fishermen landing immature bass which average 600g. These smaller fish feed two comfortably, three at a push, probably with leftovers.
Sea bass isn’t an obvious fish to eat cold, but one of the River Café signature dishes is roast sea bass with lentils and salsa verde and on more than one occasion mine has been served cold. It was so good, I didn’t demur.
Watch out for vicious spiky fins, particularly on the ‘backs’ of sea bass, which should be snipped off with kitchen scissors before scaling. Sea bass are thickly covered with a layer of big scales. It’s sensible to line the sink with newspaper before you start scaling because the thin little plastic discs go everywhere and stick to everything. Work up the body from the tail end, scraping a blunt knife vigorously backwards and forwards, until they’re all gone. Having removed the scales, slit the belly from the anal fin to the head and pull out the guts with your fingers. Gutting a sea bass can be an alarming process because you often find undigested whole pilchards, baby squid or young, soft-shell crabs in their big bellies. Give the cavity a good wash under cold running water. To remove the head, cut in a V-shape rather than straight across so that none of the precious fillet is wasted.
It takes practice and confidence to fillet a large, so-called round fish like bass and it’s an expensive fish to spoil. Practise first on smaller and cheaper similar fish such as gurnard, herring or mackerel.
Use a very sharp thin-bladed knife, preferably a filleting knife.
Lay the fish on its side with its tail towards you and its backbone to your right (unless you are left-handed). Cut across the top of the fish below the head in a V-shape to release the top of the fillet. Turn the knife and slice close to the backbone, cutting all the way down to the tail in one swoop, but gently stroking the flat of the knife across the rib cage towards the belly as you slice. It helps to lift the fillet with your left hand as you move down the fish, so that you can see what you’re doing. Turn the fish over and repeat on the other side. I find it easier to run the knife from tail to head on this side.
Keep the debris for the stockpot.
Bass is usually cooked with its skin on because it eats so well, but if you want to remove it, follow the instructions for skinning flat fish fillets (see page 65).
I’ve come late in life to appreciate red mullet. I had always found it bony, dry and rather too strongly flavoured, but recently I’ve discovered what a special little fish it is. It looks like a giant goldfish and is covered with a thick layer of scales and viscous dorsal fins which should be snipped off before scaling. Most red mullet landed weigh about 200g, which is exactly the right size for one person. It’s often cooked with its liver in place, flavouring the fish in a rich, gamy way that suits the firm flesh. Most of the time it’s cooked simply at the Fish Store – whole, either grilled or quickly roasted with butter or olive oil – and eaten with plenty of lemon juice, black pepper and Maldon sea salt. It’s good like this with a smear of pesto or black olive paste and roasted red peppers and aubergine too, if you’re in a Mediterranean mood. Another good idea is to tuck a sprig of rosemary in the cavity to encourage the gamy flavours. Whatever you do, take care not to overcook red mullet because it can be dry. Slashing the fish on the diagonal in a couple places, cutting down to the bone, helps it cook evenly. The local term for this is ‘snotching’. For more preparation and filleting advice, see Oily Fish, pages 42–3. Red mullet skin is considered a delicacy.
Gurnard is not related to red mullet, but the pink/red colour of its skin is very similar. It’s a prehistoric-looking fish with a big, beaky, hard face and surprisingly intricate snowflake etching on its huge, duck-like head. Although most fish are quite small, they can grow as large as 2kg, and whatever the size of the fish, a gurnard’s head seems curiously at odds with its slim tapering body and long, beard-like side jaw fins. It’s used for crab bait in this part of Cornwall and is essentially a stock and soup fish, but deserves greater acknowledgement (not least because it’s very cheap). I’m a recent convert and buy it whole, using the head and carcass for the stockpot – they add an essential taste to Mediterranean fish soup – and I cook the fillets simply, either grilling or frying, using them as a cheap alternative to red mullet. It’s quite a bony fish, similar to red mullet, mackerel, herring and pilchards, and needs to be pin-boned by running a finger over the flesh to locate bones and using tweezers to whip them out. If I’m filleting any of these fish, I take an old tip from Rick Stein and cut lines of bones out in a strip.
John Dory is a bit of a weirdo to look at. It’s immediately recognizable by the black ‘thumb prints’ on either side of its stumpy but thin, flat body, which give it its other name – St Peter’s fish or St Pierre. The faded spot is said to denote the place where St Peter put his thumb when picking it up. It has a viscous Mohican-fin ‘hairdo’ which fringes to a tail that resembles a spiky Afro comb, but it is the pouting Mick Jagger lips which make St Pierre so distinctive. It has a smooth skin with no scales and firm, delicate tasting snowy-white meat. Big heavy bones make it easy to fillet but leave little room for flesh, so expect to get around 300g fillet from a 1kg fish. The two fillets divide naturally into three thin strips rather than the usual two and are small compared with the size of the fish. When buying from a fishmonger, always ask for the carcass to make stock, but if you want to have a go at filleting John Dory, follow the instructions for flat fish. It is less hassle to cook John Dory whole – either grilled or in a hot oven – but because the delicate, firm flesh suits creamy sauces, it means last-minute filleting and a quickly made cream and butter sauce. Summer and autumn are the best times for local John Dory.
There are so many lovely ways to cook a whole sea bass, but this one wins hands down most of the time at the Fish Store because it is so easy to make and so good to eat. The fish are cooked in the oven in foil and the foil can then be used to collect bones and other detritus destined for the bin.
Apart from being a lovely, simple dish to share with friends, this is perfect diet food. It tastes delicious, requires minimal preparation and cooking, and is healthy and satisfying, leaving you feeling light and elegantly fed.
The ideal accompaniment is boiled basmati rice and this way of cooking it gives perfect results every time. I specify toasted sesame oil in the list of ingredients. Any oil would do, but this one, sold as a condiment in Chinese and oriental ranges of food, gives the dish a rich, nutty flavour. Confusingly, it is often labelled as sesame oil. A small bottle with an oriental logo is usually the clue. If it’s more appropriate, this recipe can be made in a steamer.
2 sea bass, 450–600g, head on, scaled and gutted
2 tbsp vegetable oil, preferably toasted sesame oil
2 bunches of spring onions
2 garlic cloves
50g piece fresh ginger
soy sauce
250g basmati rice
8 sheets of foil approx. 30 × 20cm
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Cut two short diagonal slashes across the middle of both sides of the fish, cutting almost to the bone. Wash out the fish cavity and pat dry. Lay out four sheets of foil and use your hands to oil the fish all over. Lay the fish on a sheet of foil. Trim and cut the spring onions in long, thin diagonal slices. Peel the garlic and slice in wafer-thin rounds. Peel the ginger and slice into thin pieces and then into batons or small scraps. Mix spring onions, garlic and ginger together. Divide between the body cavity and the slashes on both sides of the fish. Working on one fish at a time, splash with soy sauce, adding any leftover oil. Place a second sheet of foil over the fish and loosely fold and crimp the edges to make a secure but not overly tight parcel. Place the fish on a baking tray and cook in the hot oven for 15 minutes. The parcels can be kept waiting for 5–10 minutes without harm. Meanwhile, rinse the rice until the water runs clean and place in a pan with 375ml cold water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat immediately to very low, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat but leave the lid for a further 10 minutes for the rice to finish cooking in the steam. Fork up the rice and serve. Remove the skin and fillet the fish at the table, serving one fillet per person with a share of the spring onions, ginger, garlic and juices. Serve with soy sauce.
Many summers ago, I was served this at a dinner party in St Tropez and was so captivated by the combination of flavours, textures and colours on the plate that I’ve been making it ever since. In the summer it is even more popular at the Fish Store than the previous recipe. Sauce vierge – vierge means virgin and is a term for olive oil made from first-pressed olives – originates, I think, from Michel Guérard’s seminal Cuisine Gourmande, and is really a tomato vinaigrette. When I make this for a family supper, I usually cook a whole bass in foil in the oven and serve the fillets from the fish at the table, but for a dinner party it’s less hassle to poach individual fillets.
6 fillets sea bass, approx. 175g each
for the sauce vierge:
6 ripe but firm tomatoes
2 plump new-season garlic cloves
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
200ml best possible olive oil
handful of basil leaves
for the court bouillon:
1 onion
1 stick celery
1 carrot
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt
1 litre cold water
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Place the tomatoes in a bowl, cover with boiling water and count to 20. Drain, peel, halve, scrape out the seeds and slice the flesh into dice. Peel the garlic and slice in wafer-thin rounds. Mix together the vinegar and garlic in a large bowl. Stir the chopped tomatoes into the bowl and leave to macerate for 30 minutes. Stir the olive oil into the salad and tear or snip the basil over the top. Stir and serve.
Meanwhile, peel and chop the onion, thinly slice the celery, scrape and chop the carrot and place in a pan with the bay leaf, salt, water and white wine vinegar. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Cook the fish by slipping the fillets into the boiling court bouillon. Bring back to the boil and switch off the heat. Leave, covered, for 5 minutes. Carefully lift the fillets of fish out of the pan. Drain on absorbent kitchen paper and remove the skin.
To serve, place a fillet of fish on a warm dinner plate, spoon over the sauce and serve with mashed or new potatoes and perhaps green beans. Alternatively, serve with beurre blanc.
4 shallots
225g cold, unsalted butter
75ml white wine vinegar
salt and pepper
a squeeze of lemon juice
Peel, halve and finely chop the shallots. Cut the butter into cubes. Place shallots, vinegar and 50ml cold water in a small non-reactive pan. Season with salt and pepper and place over a high heat. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated. Turn the heat to very low and whisk in the butter, piece by piece, until it is incorporated and the sauce has the consistency of thin cream. Taste for seasoning and add lemon juice to taste.
It’s probably my background as a restaurant critic that accounts for it, but I’ve definitely got a ‘nose’ for sniffing out worthwhile restaurants. Take the short stay my sister and I had in Verona. I purposely didn’t arrive armed with guidebooks and, although I had a few dining recommendations from friends up my sleeve, I wanted to do my own restaurant sleuthing. Bottega del Vino is tucked away down a side street off one of the main shopping drags and it drew me like a magnet. From the outside it doesn’t look much, but once inside the place is a hive of activity. The tightly packed tables edge up to the busy bar and a proliferation of preoccupied but attentive waiters work the deep, L-shaped room. Wine, as you can tell from the name of the place, is serious business here and the bar is lined with bottles of various vintages from local names like Masi, noted for its Valpolicella. The wine list is a thick book, but the menu is far more manageable. It was my sister who chose sea bass with balsamico but I was the one who wanted the recipe. Our waiter tossed his blond locks as he sniffed the cork from our Soave Classico, poured a mouthful into a glass, deftly decanted it into another, sniffed and passed it on for confirmation of acceptability. Minutes later, he was back telling me in his perfect English that the sea bass is splashed with balsamico, roasted, filleted and then the juices poured over the top. So, you can either do it like that or use fillets as I have done in this recipe; mine is quick and stunningly good. Aged balsamic vinegar is thick and syrupy and clings to the fish, giving it a sweet, rich and beguiling succulence. Serve with chive game chips (see page 218), made with 2 tablespoons of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley instead of chives, and a green vegetable. Peas with young leaf spinach added for the last 30 seconds of cooking and served with a splash of olive oil go particularly well with this.
4 sea bass fillets, approx. 200g each
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Place a sheet of foil in a small, shallow metal oven pan. Smear the skin side of the fish with olive oil and lay the fillets skin-side down in the pan. Dribble the flesh with the balsamico and a splash of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cook in the hot oven for 10 minutes. Transfer to warmed plates and dribble any juices left in the foil over the top. Serve immediately.
The Spectator is a not a magazine I usually see, but when I do I always check out the Dear Mary ‘Your Problems Solved’ column. ‘During May,’ a letter in a copy discarded in the Fish Store log basket began, ‘I attended an exceptionally good party given in Venice.’ The letter requested enlightenment on ‘the unusual and gratifyingly texture’ of one of the dishes served. The recipe, described by MW of Wiltshire as ‘a kind of sea bass carpaccio’, was prepared by Renato Piccolotto, the chef of the Hotel Cipriani, and is a masterpiece of simplicity. Carpaccio in this context means thin slices and in this instance the fish is marinated in lemon juice for a couple of hours. This has the effect of ‘cooking’ the fish and thus changing its colour and texture. It is quite safe to eat and surprisingly delicious. Here, it is served with a crunchy salad garnish which has been doused in extra virgin olive oil with a few shredded basil leaves. The dish is a perfect dinner-party starter in that it can be prepared in advance, assembled quickly and easily at the last minute and has enormous appeal even to those who’ve never fancied the idea of raw fish. The first time I made it, I followed the recipe slav-ishly (500g sea bass, 60g each diced tomato, cucumber and fennel, 3 basil leaves plus a few more when it’s served) but everyone agreed that the salad garnish was so agreeable that next time I upped the quantities considerably.
When sea bass is available, especially during its summer season, this is a favourite Fish Store dinner-party starter. Particularly if someone can persuade Jake to fillet it. This recipe is also good with salmon.
500g sea bass fillet
2 lemons
200g ripe plum or vine tomatoes
200g cucumber
200g fennel
about 12 flourishing basil leaves
Maldon sea salt flakes and black pepper
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Check over the fish with your index finger to locate stray bones and remove them with tweezers. Using a sharp, thin-bladed knife, cut across the fillets, at an angle, to make very thin slices. Lay the slices out in a single layer on a large plate and squeeze over the lemon juice. Cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to ‘cook’. Meanwhile, place the tomatoes in a bowl, cover with boiling water and count to 20. Drain, splash with cold water to stop the flesh softening, then remove skins and core. Quarter the tomatoes, scrape out the seeds and dice the flesh. Use a potato peeler to skin the cucumber, split lengthways and scrape out the seeds and their watery surrounds with a teaspoon. Dice into similar-sized pieces. Trim the fennel, cut out the dense core and finely dice the layers of flesh. Shred 3 of the basil leaves. Place tomatoes, cucumber, fennel and shredded basil in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and add 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Toss and leave to marinate until ready to serve. Drain the lemon juice from the fish, season lightly with salt and pepper and add the remaining olive oil. Place the salad over the top, garnish with the remaining basil and serve.
Cucumber is terrific in slurping noodle dishes, adding a clean, crisp taste and texture which goes well with the slippery noodles. Ready-togo rice noodles sold in sealed plastic packs are a useful standby, but any of the round (as opposed to flat) rice noodles would be good for this dish. Sushi ginger has become an essential relish and is used in all sorts of fish dishes. It’s sold by health food shops, some supermarkets and many fishmongers. To make this for more people, just multiply the ingredients in proportion.
½ cucumber
2 spring onions
½ chicken stock cube
3 tbsp soy sauce
6 slices sushi ginger
150g soaked Udon or other round rice noodles
2 sea bass fillets, approx. 175g each
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Use a potato peeler to peel the cucumber. Cut it in half lengthways and use a teaspoon to scrape away the seeds and their watery surround. Slice into chunky half-moons. Trim the spring onions and then finely slice them. Dissolve the stock cube in 300ml boiling water. Add the soy sauce, cucumber and spring onions to the stock. Cover and leave for 5 minutes. Add the ginger to the broth.
At the same time, place the noodles in a separate bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 5 minutes. Drain the noodles and divide between two deep bowls. Strain the stock over the top, then stir the cucumber and onions into the noodles.
Pre-heat the grill. Brush the bass with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill on both sides, finishing with the skinned side, allowing the skin to blister and crisp but taking care not to overcook the fish. Allow a couple of minutes each side and up to 5 minutes, depending on thickness. Lay the fish skin-side up over the noodles and serve.
A lovely combination of textures and flavours. There is sufficient minted pea purée for 6–8 servings but it keeps well and reheats perfectly.
1 recipe minted pea purée (see page 284)
8 gurnard fillets without skin
salt and pepper
flour for dusting
8 rindless, thin rashers smoked streaky bacon
groundnut oil for frying
1 lemon
First make the pea purée.
Run your finger over the gurnard fillets to check for stray bones, pulling them out with tweezers or pliers, or divide them in two length-ways, cutting out the bony strip. Season both sides of the fish with salt and pepper, then dust with flour, shaking away the excess. Grill the bacon on both sides until very crisp. Rest on absorbent kitchen paper to drain and keep warm. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and cook four fillets at a time so the fish isn’t crowded and can cook quickly and evenly. Allow a couple of minutes a side, until golden and just cooked through. Serve the fish fillets over the hot pea purée, with the bacon on top of the fish and a lemon wedge on the side.
Fish stock is quick and cheap to make. Most of the goodness and flavour comes from the bones and trimmings of fish, but the heads and skin are good too. All white fish and most crustaceans make satisfactory fish stocks, but oily fish such as mackerel, herring, pilchards and sardine aren’t suitable, except in special circumstances, and give an oily, bitter flavour. Different combinations of fish and shellfish can give marked differences in flavour. The crème de la crème combination is sole (particularly Dover), turbot or halibut carcass, head and tail, with cod trimmings. Sole, whiting, turbot and monkfish, which are among the few fish that yield substantial amounts of gelatine, provide stocks with the most body. Red mullet and gurnard give it a noticeable Mediterranean flavour, and crab and lobster debris give it a depth of flavour and richer colour. It’s easy to scrounge carcasses, heads and tails and small damaged fish from fishmongers, particularly those in Newlyn who are wholesalers too. In fact, some of them close to the fish market maintain a help-yourself box next to the wet fish display and will help you pick out the best of the bunch if they’re not busy.
Traditionally, fish stocks are seasoned with finely diced onion, carrot and leek, with a bouquet garni of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf. Because fish stocks cook quickly, the vegetables should be finely sliced or diced to release the flavour in the shortest possible time.
Fish stock is never as clear as meat and vegetable stocks, but the clearest stocks are made with very fresh bones and trimmings. They should be used immediately and washed thoroughly under running water. The carcass should be chopped across the backbone into 5cm pieces.
Fish stock is not improved by increasing the length of cooking. To intensify the flavour of fish stock, reduce it by gentle simmering (without the bones, etc.) and by adding new bones and trimmings for old.
Fish stock should be stored covered and will keep for a few days in the fridge but the flavours begin to fade after 12 hours. It can be kept successfully for up to 1 month in the freezer.
900g carcasses, heads, tails and trimmings of non-oily fish
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick celery
1 leek
salt and pepper
glass of white wine
sprig of thyme
small bunch of parsley stalks
½ bay leaf
Leave the fish debris to soak in cold water for an hour. Drain and chop the carcasses across the backbone in 5cm widths. Meanwhile, peel and chop the onion, scrape and chop the carrot, trim and finely slice the celery and leek. Melt the butter in a spacious pan and stir in the chopped vegetables, season with salt and pepper, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes. Stir the fish trimmings into the vegetables, then add the wine. Cook on a fierce heat for a few minutes until reduced, then add 2.3 litres of cold water. Bring to the boil, skim well, add the thyme, parsley and bay leaf, reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes. Strain. To concentrate the flavour, simmer gently until reduced by a third.
Smearing the slashes or ‘snotches’ cut in the mullet with garlic butter is an idea borrowed from Jake Freethy, skipper of Go For It. The sweet, garlicky flesh is delicious with some very crisply fried or roasted potatoes tossed with masses of chopped flat-leaf parsley.
4 red mullet, scaled, trimmed, gutted with heads on
4 big garlic cloves
salt
100g soft butter
squeeze of lemon
1 lemon, to serve
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Cut two or three diagonal slashes on either side of the fish, cutting down to the bone. Rinse the fish and pat dry with absorbent kitchen paper. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Sprinkle with a little salt and use the flat of a knife to work to a juicy paste. Place the butter in a bowl. Add the garlic paste and a squeeze of lemon. Beat the garlic into the butter. Spread the garlic butter in the cavity and slashes on both sides of the fish. Line a baking tray with tinfoil and lay out the fish. Cook in the oven for 15–20 minutes until just cooked. Serve the fish whole with a lemon wedge.
A rather smart-looking, restaurant-style high-rise layered dish which is also good without the beans, served over rice. Adding saffron to the tomatoes gives the sauce a Moorish flavour. I like it with a few buttery new potatoes tossed with mint.
750g ripe tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
generous pinch of saffron softened in 1 tbsp hot water
400g fine green beans
8 red mullet fillets, approx. 75g each
extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
Place the tomatoes in a bowl. Cover with boiling water, count to 20, drain and peel. Cut out the cores, discard the seeds and chop. Peel and finely chop the garlic. In a large frying pan, fry the garlic in 3 tablespoons of olive oil until aromatic and lightly coloured. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper and saffron, and simmer for 10 minutes. Top and tail the beans and cook in a big pan of salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and keep warm. Meanwhile, brush the red mullet fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill for 2 minutes a side until just cooked through. Make a nest of beans in the middle of four serving plates, top with tomato sauce and arrange the fish, skin-side up, over the sauce. Swirl over and round the fish with olive oil, garnish with parsley and serve.
Here’s an Italian way of preparing red mullet which suits the robust flavour of this lovely fish. It smells wonderful as it cooks and is good with buttered new potatoes tossed with mint or very crisp roast potatoes, started before the fish goes into the oven.
2 red mullet, scaled, trimmed, gutted, with heads on
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1 lemon
4 slices Parma ham
extra virgin olive oil
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Wash the fish inside and out and pat dry. Have ready a small roasting tin. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Chop the rosemary leaves until they resemble green dust. Mix the two together with the juice from half the lemon, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Spoon some of the mixture into the cavity of each mullet and smear the rest all over them. Wrap two slices of ham around each fish and arrange in the roasting tin. Dribble the remaining oil over the fish. Cook in the oven for 15–20 minutes until the fish is just cooked through and the ham is crisp. Serve with a lemon wedge and a bottle of your best olive oil to splash over the fish.
A good fish stock, nurtured over several days from the debris of many crab and fish meals, tends to lead me to make this rich and luscious soup at the Fish Store. Unlike bouillabaisse, the other famous French fisherman’s soup, which is made with pieces of fish, this one is a thick, smooth(ish) purée. It was originally made with the fish left behind in the nets, either damaged or too small for sale, all boiled up with garlic, tomatoes and other soup vegetables. It ends up a deep brick colour and has a back flavour of anise, saffron and orange zest, and the merest hint of chilli from the cayenne pepper. It’s extremely rich and filling, particularly as it is always served with a spankingly fiery rouille or mayonnaise, grated Gruyère cheese and slices of oven-toasted bread. It’s fun to load the toasts with rouille and cheese and float them in the soup, where they melt and merge with the gorgeous fish nectar. A feast. Follow with cheese and salad. And something indulgent from the pudding section.
1 onion
1 carrot
6 garlic cloves
1 leek, white part only
1 large fennel bulb
olive oil for frying, approx. 100ml
salt and pepper
approx. 1.3kg mixed fish, which must include: gurnard, red or grey mullet, huss, monkfish, rascasse if you can get them, but also conger eel, sea bream, hake or any non-oily fish and small, soft-shell crabs
6 very ripe tomatoes or 400g can peeled whole tomatoes
½ tsp cayenne pepper
bouquet garni made with: 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, 1 sprig rosemary, small bunch parsley, particularly the stalks, and leek greens
5cm strip dried orange zest
1 tbsp tomato purée
½ glass Pernod, Ricard or similar if possible
2.5 litres fish stock (see page 108)
very generous pinch of saffron stamens softened in 1 tbsp boiling water
for the croûtes:
1 day-old baguette or similar
olive oil
2 red peppers
1 thick slice white bread
2 large garlic cloves
1 small red chilli
salt and pepper
pinch saffron stamens softened in 1 tbsp boiling water
100ml olive oil
freshly grated Gruyère, approx. 200g
Peel and chop the onion, carrot and garlic. Trim and slice the leek and fennel. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole that can hold the finished soup and stir in the prepared vegetables and garlic. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook, stirring a couple of times, over a low heat for 15–20 minutes until soft but not brown. Meanwhile, wash all the seafood and chop – heads, bones and all – into pieces about 6cm long. Coarsely chop the tomatoes (it’s easiest to chop canned tomatoes in the can). Sprinkle the cayenne over the vegetables, then pile the fish over the top, adding the tomatoes, bouquet garni (tied up with string), orange zest, tomato purée and Pernod, if using. Increase the heat and cook, stirring a couple of times to avoid sticking, for a further 5 minutes. Add the stock and saffron and bring up to the boil – this will take quite a while – as quickly as possible. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30–45 minutes until everything is thoroughly cooked and falling to bits. Liquidize the soup in batches, then return through a sieve or Moulilegumes, pressing and scraping under the sieve so nothing is wasted, into another pan or bowl. Stir well, then return to the original (clean) pan and discard the debris. You want the soup to be smooth and without lumps or bone. Reheat, taste and adjust the seasoning.
To make the croûtes: pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Slice the loaf, brush both sides generously with olive oil, lay out the slices on a baking sheet and bake, turning once, for about 6 minutes until crisp and golden.
To make the rouille: core, deseed and quarter the peppers length-ways. Grill, skin-sideup, until the skin chars and blisters. Peel off the skin. Soak the bread in water, leave for a few minutes, then squeeze out the excess. Peel and chop the garlic. Trim and split the chilli. Scrape away the seeds and finely chop. Pound or process the bread with the peppers, garlic, chilli, salt, pepper and saffron to make a paste, and gradually incorporate the oil to make a smooth, thick, shiny sauce. Transfer to a bowl. Cover with clingfilm, to stop a crust forming, if not using immediately.
If preferred, this lovely dish could be made with turbot or brill (see Flat Fish, page 63) and mushrooms could be used in place of sorrel.
900g–1kg John Dory, gutted, gills and fins removed
100g young sorrel
2 shallots
salt and pepper
25g butter cut into small pieces, plus an extra knob
75ml dry white wine
75ml thick cream
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Wash the fish thoroughly and pat dry. Check over the sorrel, discarding discoloured leaves and any tough central stems. Wash and shake dry. Make piles of leaves, roll up like a cigar and cut into very fine ribbons to make a chiffonade. Peel and finely chop the shallots. Season the fish on both sides. Smear a baking dish that can hold the fish snugly with the knob of butter and sprinkle with the shallots. Place the fish on top and pour in the wine. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes. When the fish is cooked, transfer to a platter and keep hot. Pour the cooking liquid and shallots into a saucepan over a high heat. Boil until the liquid is syrupy and reduced to 2–3 tablespoons. Add the cream and bring briefly to the boil, then stir in the sorrel (or cooked, sliced mushrooms). Bring back to the boil and season to taste. Remove from the heat and beat in the butter, little by little.
Peel the skin from the fish and remove the fringe of bones by running a sharp knife around the edge of the fish and pushing the bones outwards. Lift the fish on to a warmed serving plate, spoon the sauce over the top and serve. Alternatively, remove the fillets before saucing.