Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
LATIN NAME
Limanda limanda
SEASONALITY
Avoid April–June when spawning
HABITAT
Shallow seas all around the British Isles and northern Europe
MCS RATING
2–3
REC MINIMUM SIZE
20cm
MORE RECIPES
Grilled flounder and tomatoes; Megrim with crab and chives; Plaice with rosemary, caper and anchovy butter
SOURCING
We should all be eating more dab, and here’s why. It’s cheap, very tasty – on a par with plaice, to which it is related – and, according to the MCS, it’s probably the second most abundant fish in the North Sea (the first being sand eels). Yet dab is ridiculously under-utilised – up to 90 per cent of the catch is discarded.
No one could call this fish beautiful. It’s a dull, mottled brown creature with rough skin and the mournful bug-eyes that most flatfish share. Dab are often very small too (as little as 150g), but this makes them simple to cook – especially if you get your fishmonger to fillet the fish for you. They can be cooked and dished up, with minimal effort, in about 4 minutes flat.
Dab is also an easy and rewarding fish to cook whole: just scrape off the scales, snip off the fins with scissors then slice off the head and remove the gut that you’ll find exposed just below it. It takes only a few minutes, and then your dab is ready to throw into a frying pan. A generous knob of butter in the pan, or rapeseed oil, is all the sauce you need – enhanced perhaps with some chopped garlic, and a few bruised thyme leaves.
Having said that, I do like to sandwich a couple of well-seasoned, butter-fried dab fillets in a bun with lettuce and mayo – and perhaps a few capers. You can also crumb the fillets (dip first in flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs), fry them in oil and serve them with tartare sauce and lemon wedges. And you can even pop your dab into a foil ‘bag’, as in the recipe below. But that’s about as elaborate as I’d get – the simplest approaches bring the best out of this under-appreciated little fish.
Because dab is not a target species (it’s mainly by-catch for fishermen looking for plaice and sole) catches may be somewhat erratic. But grab it when you see it – it’s well worth having on your radar.
This simple technique is great for both whole fish and fillets – try it also with megrim and witch, trout and sustainable salmon fillets. You could swap the simple herb and lemon flavourings here for chilli, ginger and soy. Serves 2
About 500g waxy salad potatoes, such as Nicola or Pink Fir Apple, scrubbed
2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
1 garlic clove, very thinly sliced
2–3 tbsp chopped herbs, such as parsley, chives, dill, fennel and/or basil
2 dab (ideally about 300g each), descaled, trimmed and gutted
2 large knobs of butter
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Sea salt and black pepper
Put the potatoes in a pan, cover with water, salt well and bring to the boil. Simmer until tender, 8–12 minutes depending on their size. Drain and cool. (You can do this in advance.)
Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6. Tear off a couple of sheets of foil, each about 60 x 30cm. Cut the cooked potatoes into thick slices (5–10mm).
Divide the potato slices between the foil sheets, placing them on one half and leaving a good margin of foil around the edge. Trickle the potatoes with oil, tuck in the sliced garlic and scatter over the chopped herbs. Season with salt and pepper.
Season the dabs well all over and lay them on the potatoes. Trickle with a smidge more oil, dot the butter over the fish then scatter over the lemon zest. Finally, give everything a good squeeze of lemon juice. Envelop the fish in the foil as neatly as you can, but not tightly – the parcels should be baggy. Crimp the edges together well.
Place the foil parcels on a large baking tray and cook in the oven for 15–20 minutes, or until the fish is done. Allow the parcels to stand for a few minutes before tearing them open. Serve with a green vegetable such as steamed broccoli.