Seafood

Prawn Pad Thai by Norman Musa

Prawn Pad Thai - BOWLFUL. IMAGE CREDIT Luke J Albert

When anyone asks about the best Thai dishes that have been exported around the world, Pad Thai is certainly among the most sought after. My visit to the country’s capital in search of the best Pad Thai in Bangkok revealed how easy it actually is to cook this dish. It has a wonderful combination of sweet, sour and salty flavours with a good crunch of peanuts. Forget about ready-made sauce in a jar, you can make your own by combining tamarind, palm sugar, fish sauce and soy sauce – it’s as simple as that.

SERVES 2

200g/7oz flat rice noodles
½ tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for the egg
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
10 raw king prawns, shelled and deveined, but tails left on
1 egg
125g/4½oz bean sprouts
50g/1¾oz garlic chives (kow choi)

FOR THE SEASONING

1½ tbsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp light soy sauce

FOR THE GARNISH

1 spring onion, cut into thin strips and soaked in cold water until curled, then drained
10 sprigs of fresh coriander, leaves picked
2 tsp dried chilli flakes
½ lime, cut into 2 wedges
2 tbsp salted peanuts, lightly crushed

Prepare the noodles according to the packet instructions; drain and set aside. In a small bowl, mix the seasoning ingredients with 2 tablespoons of water and stir well.

Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over a high heat. Fry the garlic for 30 seconds, then add the prawns and cook for 1 minute. Push the prawns to one side of the wok or frying pan and drizzle in a little more oil. Crack in the egg, scramble it, cook until dry and then add the noodles and seasoning mixture. Cook for 2 minutes, then stir in the bean sprouts and chives, continue to cook for 1 more minute and then turn off the heat.

Transfer to two serving bowls and garnish with the spring onion, coriander, chilli flakes, lime wedges and peanuts. Serve at once.

Image: Luke J Albert

Cook more from this book:
Vegetarian Biryani with Chickpeas by Norman Musa

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Buy this book: Bowlful: Fresh and vibrant dishes from Southeast Asia by Norman Musa (Pavilion Books).

Roasted Monkfish Tail with ’Nduja, White Beans and Samphire by Cindy -Marie Harvey

Paired Wine: Native Grace Barrel Chardonnay from Henners Vineyard

The original dish that I planned to match with this wine was whole roasted turbot with fennel – and that would be delicious. But after a splendid tasting at Henners, I enjoyed a fabulous barbecued monkfish at the outstanding restaurant The Salt Room in Brighton. The smokiness of the ’nduja balances the barrel ferment, though you can replace it with smoked paprika for a less punchy element in the dish, while the ‘meaty’ texture of the monkfish is heaven with this wine. I was so taken with enjoying the English wine, the English seafood and great company, I neglected to ask the Chef for the recipe, so this is my reinvention from that inspiration.

SERVES TWO

Large jar of alargada white beans (about 700g undrained weight)*
Olive oil, for frying
1 large white onion, finely chopped
115g ’nduja
400–450ml vegetable stock (homemade if possible – keep on a simmer until needed)
1 monkfish tail (800g–1kg) – whole on the bone, skin and membrane removed
30g butter
100g samphire
Sea salt and black pepper

To serve:
Extra-virgin olive oil Smoked paprika (optional) Zest of 1 lemon

* The Perelló brand of alargada white beans is excellent but you can also make this with butter beans or even chickpeas. Do, however, buy them in jars not cans, as the texture and taste is so much better.

Please do read the method first because you can either cook the beans while the fish is cooking, or get ahead and prepare earlier – the beans (before the samphire is added) are very forgiving at being reheated. You won’t use all of the beans from a large jar but they are delicious next day as a salad with tomatoes and feta, or even on toast with some bacon!

Empty out the white beans into a sieve, rinse and drain.

Heat a couple of glugs of oil in a large, heavy-based casserole (Le Creuset style) over a medium heat. Add the onions and leave to soften but not colour – about 10 minutes – stirring occasionally. Turn down the heat if they start to catch.

Add the ’nduja and, keeping the heat low, mix in well until it breaks down completely and the onions take on a rich red colour – about 5 minutes.

Tip in the drained beans and mix well with the onions. Add the heated stock and stir well again. Smush a couple of spoonfuls of the beans against the side of the casserole with a cooking spoon. This will give the dish a creamy texture. Continue to cook over a gentle heat for about 15 minutes – keep an eye on the stock level and add bit more if required.

Preheat the oven to 130°C fan/150°C/ gas mark 2.

Season the monkfish lightly with salt (bear in mind the samphire will give lots of saltiness to the dish).

Melt the butter until foaming in a large frying pan. Brown the monkfish on all sides (allow 4–5 minutes) and transfer to a roasting tin. Pour melted butter from the pan over the fish. Place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, then turn the fish over and cook for further 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven, cover with aluminium foil, and set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Ensure the bean mixture is hot and stir through the samphire – just enough to warm it through for 1 minute so that it does not lose its crunch. Do not be tempted to add more salt – the samphire will be naturally salty enough.

To serve, portion beans and samphire onto two plates, slice each fillet of monkfish down the side of the bone and place on the beans and samphire, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and a pinch of smoked paprika. Finish with fresh lemon zest.

Buy the book: Watercress, Willow and Wine

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Read an interview with Cindy-Marie Harvey

Swordfish with Burst Tomatoes, Peppers, and Za’atar and Preserved Lemon by Colu Henry

My dad ordered swordfish a lot when we vacationed on the Cape in the eighties. He also spent a lot of time unsuccessfully surf casting on Nauset Beach, but that’s another story. In the years following, swordfish became so overfished that for many years it was taken off menus. Since then, a lot of work has been done to rebuild the population and I’m so pleased we’re able to eat them responsibly again. They are meaty, flavorful, wonderful fish that hold their own with punchy flavors, which you’ll see here. If you can find the Italian Jimmy Nardello varietal of peppers for this recipe, please do. They are up there as one of my favorite peppers, and when cooked, their sweetness intensifies and almost becomes a bit smoky. I first had them in Napa and was thrilled when the farmers at Sparrowbush started growing them here in Hudson. Clearly a bell pepper will also work, but I think the Nardello’s are worth tracking down.

Serves 4
Time: 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons (60 ml) olive oil
3 Jimmy Nardello peppers or 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and cut into long thin strips
2 pints (290 g) mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved if large
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 chile pepper, such as cayenne, serrano, or jalapeño, thinly sliced
2½ teaspoons za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice blend consisting of dried herbs and sesame seeds)
¼ cup (112 g) seeded and roughly chopped preserved lemon (both peel and flesh)
½ cup (120 ml) dry white wine
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 (6-ounce/170 g) swordfish steaks, about ¾ inch (2 cm) thick
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
Flaky salt, for finishing (optional)

METHOD
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a deep-sided 12-inch (30.5 cm) skillet over medium heat. Add the sweet peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are softened and beginning to turn golden in spots, 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the cherry tomatoes to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to burst, 5 to 7 minutes, pressing the tomatoes gently with the back of a spatula or wooden spoon to get them nice and jammy. (I like to keep some with more structure than the others for texture’s sake.) There should be a fair amount of liquid released in the pan. If not, add a few tablespoons of water. Stir in the garlic, chile pepper, za’atar, and preserved lemon and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more, until the garlic is fragrant and the spice mix is lightly toasted.

Pour in the white wine and bring to a simmer, scraping up any brown bits that have formed at the bottom of the pan, and cook for 10 minutes or so, allowing the flavors to get to know each other and the sauce to slightly thicken. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, prepare the swordfish steaks. Season the fish well with salt and pepper. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, and then gently flip to finish cooking, 2 to 3 minutes more, or until the flesh is opaque all the way through. Arrange the swordfish in the pan with the tomatoes and peppers and scatter the top with the oregano leaves. Season with flaky salt if you like. Spoon more of the sauce over the top and serve from the pan.

Buy this book
Colu Cooks by Colu Henry
£25, Abrams Books

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Smoky and Spicy Shrimp with Anchovy Butter and Fregola by Colu Henry

SmokyAndSpicyShrimp_p111a_ColuCooks_p111a

It’s all right there for you in the title. Sweet shrimp is sautéed until just cooked through, and fregola (a tiny toasted pasta from Sardinia) is added to the pot to toast in the melted anchovy butter and spices with some cherry tomatoes. I love Calabrian chiles packed in oil and use them here for some punchy heat, but if red pepper flakes are within closer reach feel free to use them instead. Once the fregola finishes cooking, return the shrimp to the pot to warm them through and serve straight from the pan. Serve with many bottles of chilled red wine.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS
1 pound (455 g) extra-large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup (½ stick/55 g) unsalted butter
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 oil-packed anchovies
3 Calabrian chiles, roughly chopped, or 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 pint (290 g) cherry or Sungold tomatoes
1½ cups (270 g) fregola
3 cups (700 ml) chicken stock
½ cup (20 g) loosely packed basil leaves, torn if large, or roughly chopped parsley or mint, or a combination of all three

METHOD
Season the shrimp well with salt and black pepper. In a 12-inch (30.5 cm) skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the shrimp and cook until pink, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Remove and set aside on a plate.

Add the garlic, anchovies, Calabrian chiles, and smoked paprika to the skillet and stir until the garlic is fragrant and the anchovies have dissolved, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and toast for a minute or so. Add the cherry tomatoes and stir to coat. Cook until the tomatoes begin to burst, pressing down on them gently to help release their liquid, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the fregola to the pan and stir until the pasta is well coated in the spiced butter. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the fregola is al dente, 10 to 12 minutes.

Add the shrimp back to the pan with any juices that have accumulated on the plate and stir until they are just warmed through. Scatter with herbs and serve.

Buy this book
Colu Cooks by Colu Henry
£25, Abrams Books

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Grilled bream with pink grapefruit by Ollie Dabbous

Gilthead bream is one of the best-quality farmed fish you can buy. It is always consistent in quality and very good value; not as meaty as sea bass, but with lovely oily flesh and crisp skin. It is great cooked over the barbecue or under a hot grill. This dressing is as delicious as it is simple. Feel free to chop and change as you wish: lemon and mint would work brilliantly, as would blood orange and sage.

Dressing
2 pink grapefruits, segmented with 6 tablespoons of their juice
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Chardonnay vinegar
1 tablespoon clear honey
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted and crushed

Bream & fennel
2 fennel bulbs
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
100ml white vermouth
2 gilthead bream, scaled, filleted and pin-boned by your fishmonger
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
fine sea salt

DRESSING
– Mix everything together and warm through in a pan. Do not heat it too much, or the grapefruit segments will cook and collapse.

BREAM & FENNEL
~ Preheat the grill to its highest setting.
~ Slice the fennel lengthways as finely as possible on a mandolin or with a sharp knife, then mix in a roasting tray with the fennel seeds and vermouth. Season lightly with salt.
~ Lightly season the fish on both sides with fine salt, spoon 1 tablespoon of the oil over each fish fillet, then place skin-side up on top of the fennel, to cover the bulk of it.
~ Grill under the preheated grill for about 8 minutes, until the fennel has wilted but the fish is cooked through and has a crispy skin.

To serve
~ Divide the fennel and fish between 4 warmed bowls and spoon over the warm grapefruit dressing.

Cook more from this book
Chicken pie by Ollie Dabbous
Tartiflette by Ollie Dabbous

Read the review

Buy this book
Essential
£30, Bloomsbury Publishing

Take One Fish by Josh Niland

Chef Josh Niland of Sydney restaurant Saint Peter revolutionised fish cookery in 2019 with the publication of his first book The Whole Fish Cookbook. His approach applies Fergus Henderson’s nose-to-tail philosophy to seafood, ‘shifting the focus to valuing diverse species and all parts of their edible components’, allowing professional chefs and very keen home cooks to achieve up to a 90 per cent yield from a wide range of fish rather than the usual 45 per cent that’s represented by the fillets alone.

Niland’s second book shows there’s still much milage in the idea with a collection of strikingly original creations. Fish offal is put to imaginative use in dishes such as Salt and Pepper John Dory Tripe (paned and deep-fried cured stomach) and a John Dory liver terrine that looks just like it’s foie gras equivalent and that’s served with brioche made with rendered fish fat harvested from species such as snapper and kingfish.

Niland often treats fish like meat, aging some species for up to four weeks. He transforms yellowfin tuna loin into ‘nduja by grinding and adding a spice mix of paprika, black pepper, fennel seeds, nutmeg and chilli flakes (and more of that rendered fish fat) while whole flounder is butchered down to French trimmed bone-in chops and prepared gai yang style, a spicy Thai dish usually made with marinated and charcoal grilled chicken.

You’ll need to bone up on your knife skills to reverse butterfly red gurnard that’s flavoured with tikka marinade and served with spiced chickpea yoghurt, or to remove the spine and gut a mackerel from the top down so that it can be stuffed with shallots, pine nuts and currents and served with an agro dolce dressing. But there are less demanding recipes too, like swordfish schnitzel, and salted sardine fillets and globe artichokes on grilled bread.

Not every cook wants a dehydrator (even if they’ve got one) full of snapper’s swim bladders or mason jars of heads, bones and scraps fermenting into garum (which Niland makes into a caramel and uses to top a custard tart), but Take One Fish is so full of delicious, different and, with some care and attention, doable ideas that no serious cook should be without a copy.

Cuisine: Seafood
Suitable for: Professional chefs/very confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Take One Fish: The New School of Scale-to-Tail Cooking and Eating
£26, ‎ Hardie Grant Books

A version of this review was originally published in The Caterer magazine.

Mussel and saffron risotto by Raymond Blanc

PREP 20 MINS / COOK 40 MINS

Mussels and saffron are united harmoniously in this classic risotto. There’s no need for that constant stirring. Instead, the rice is stirred towards the end of the cooking time to activate the starches, a trick you can use with any risotto you make.

SERVES 4

For the mussels
1kg fresh mussels
1 onion
2 bay leaves
2 thyme sprigs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
100ml dry white wine

For the risotto
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
200g carnaroli rice (or arborio)
2 bay leaves
a couple of pinches of saffron powder or strands
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 pinches of sea salt flakes
100ml dry white wine
300ml water (or fish stock)

To finish
50g Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
2 teaspoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
a handful of coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
100g cooked peas (optional)
a handful of baby-leaf spinach (optional)
½ lemon, for squeezing

TO PREPARE First, the mussels. Ensure that all the mussels are tightly closed and not damaged before you begin to cook; any mussels that are damaged or open should be discarded. The preparation can be done in advance. Wash the mussels in a large bowl and under cold running water. Mussels that float at this stage are not very fresh, so discard them. Remove any barnacles and beards, but don’t scrub the shells as this can end up colouring the cooking juices. Drain.

Finely chop the onion and peeled garlic and grate the cheese. In a large saucepan over a medium heat, sweat half the onion, the bay leaves and thyme in the butter for 1 minute. Increase the heat to high, add the mussels, pour in the wine, cover with a lid and cook for 3 minutes. Drain in a sieve over a large bowl and discard any mussels that have not opened. Reserve the cooking juices, you will need about 200ml to make the risotto. Once the mussels have cooled, pick the mussels from their shells, leaving a few in their shells for decoration, and put them all aside.

Now, to the risotto … Melt the butter in a large saucepan on a medium heat. Add the remaining onion, cover with a lid and cook for 2–3 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and stir in the rice. Add the bay leaves, saffron and cayenne pepper and lightly season with salt. Stir and continue to cook on a medium heat for 2 minutes, until the grains of rice are shiny. Pour in the wine and let it boil for 30 seconds – bubble, bubble – and stir. Pour in the mussel cooking liquor and the water or fish stock and stir again. Now cook on the gentlest simmer, with just a single bubble breaking the surface. Cover with a lid and leave for 20 minutes, but it mustn’t boil. 4

Now it’s time for 5 minutes of some serious and fast stirring. At full speed, stir the risotto. The grains rub against each other, extracting the starch, and this gives the rice its creaminess. Yet every grain remains whole, unbroken. Taste – the rice should have a slight bite. Add the cheese, butter and parsley to the risotto, along with the cooked peas and spinach, if using, all the cooked mussels and a strong squeeze of lemon. Stir, taste and correct the seasoning just before serving.

Read the review

Buy this book
Simply Raymond: Recipes from Home – The Sunday Times Bestseller, includes recipes from the ITV series
£25 Headline Home

Salmon by Mark Kurlansky

What’s the USP? From the man who brought you Cod, a book about cod, now comes Salmon, a book about the history of the social revolutionary organisation Situationist International. I’m kidding. It’s about salmon.

Who’s the author? Mark Kurlansky is an award winning American writer, journalist and sometime playwright who, according to his website, has also worked as ‘a commerical fisherman, a dock worker, a paralegal, a cook, and a pastry chef’.

Is it good bedtime reading? Salmon is not a cookbook but a work of narrative non-fiction that charts the past, present and future of one of the world’s most popular fish and ‘a barometer for the health of our planet’. Apart from a few recipes the author has collected along the way (see below for more details), it’s all bedtime reading.

Although Kurlansky does have a cookbook to his name (International Night), when writing about food, Kurlansky more usually views it through the lens of a single subject like Milk, or a person such as Clarence Birdseye (Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man) rather than basing his work around recipes. He has also written numerous books on other subjects including Ready for a Brand New Beat: How “Dancing in the Street” became an anthem for a changing America and Paper: Paging Through History and so thankfully, he is not a food writer, per se. We are therefore spared the arch, sub-poetic simpering romanticism that can sometimes besmirch the genre.

Instead Salmon is a factual, historical and journalistic exploration of the subject. From the first page of the book’s prologue, where the author travels to Alaska and goes onboard two very different salmon fishing vessels, Kurlansky uses his not inconsiderable story telling talents to hook the reader like a…(well, you know know what like) and doesn’t let them off until a pensive epilogue ‘It concerns us’ where he contemplates the environmental impact of economic development and asks the question ‘What would it mean to lose a salmon species…that is intimately engaged in the life cycle of tiny insects like a stonefly or large mammals like a brown bear…How many species do we lose when we lost a salmon? And how many others do we lost from losing those.’

It’s not all doom and gloom. Kurlansky wonders at ‘the great mystery’ of the salmon’s return to its place of birth. Anadromous species of salmon are born in rivers then migrate to the sea to mature. They then return to the river to spawn. But not just any old river; they return to their place of birth. ‘The salmon not only finds that river after travelling thousands of miles away, but it returns to the very same stretch of gravel in that same crook in the same stream where it was born some years before’.

That makes sense doesn’t it? You’ve had your wild years out at sea; now it’s time to settle down and have a family. You’re bound to want to go back to the setting for the idyllic days of your youth and where there’s a nice big lake for the kids to swim around in. Except we’re talking about a fish, an animal with a brain approximately one fifteenth the size of a bird. It’s absolutely astonishing. Can Kurlansky explain this jaw dropping phenomenon? You’ll just have to buy the book to find out.

What about the recipes? Think of them as a nice little side dish to the firm pink flesh of the book; it would be a mistake to buy Salmon expecting to get a lot of new dishes to try out and the recipes seem to have been included more for illustrative purposes than anything else. So we get the beer bread that Hannelore Olsen bakes for her husband Ole and his salmon fishing crew for dinner, and the salmon chowder prepared for Kurlansky by salmon fisherwoman Thea Thomas during a night at sea.

There’s also things like Robert May’s recipe from 1660 for pickled salmon ‘to keep all the year’ (and then throw away because, you know, it’s fish you boiled in wine and vinegar 12 months ago), and salmon al verde written in 1913 by novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán which has stood the test of time about as well as Robert May’s manky old seafood.

There’s a recipe for poached salmon which Kurlansky suggests was served to Jackie Kennedy in the White House, but it’s not clear if it’s the authors version or that of René Verdon, the Kennedy’s private chef (a White House dinner menu from the time re-produced in the book simply lists ‘medaillons de saumon ‘ which isn’t a lot to go on).

Elsewhere, there’s culinary curiosities including Swedish salmon pudding and Hawaiian lomilomi (flaked salted salmon rubbed together with peeled and de-seeded tomatoes and chopped green onions. It’s the most popular salmon dish in Hawaii. They also love Spam. Let’s all take a culinary holiday in Hawaii after lockdown shall we?). Let’s just say its a curate’s egg of a recipe collection.

Should I buy it? An entire book about one variety of fish might, on the face of it, appear to have niche appeal. But Kurlansky is such as skilled writer and his scope so wide ranging that anyone interested in food, history, the environment and sustainability will be fascinated.

Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate
£18.99, Oneworld

Shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2020. See all the shortlisted books here.

Fish and Chips by Thomas Keller

“Fish and Chips”
Ale-Battered Blowfish with Malt Vinegar Jam

Makes 6 servings

Malt Vinegar Jam
7 grams caraway seeds
225 grams malt vinegar, preferably Sarson’s
225 grams water
50 grams light brown sugar
1 gram fleur de sel
7 grams agar-agar

Split Pea and Ale Batter
30 grams dried split peas
250 grams Cup4Cup gluten-free flour
8 grams kosher salt
300 grams dark ale, plus more if needed

To Complete
Canola oil, for deep-frying
6 cleaned blowfish tails, 2 to 3 ounces (55 to 85 grams) each
Kosher salt
All-purpose flour, for dusting the fish
Freeze-dried peas, crushed between your fingers
Blanched fresh peas, warmed, for garnish
Mint leaves, preferably nepitella

Special Equipment
Chamber vacuum sealer (optional)
Cast-iron deep-fry pan (optional)
Infrared thermometer gun (optional)

We have fun serving common dishes, such as this British middle-class staple—fish and chips with mushy peas—in unusual ways. This one is very straightforward: ale-battered fish, deep-fried, with a sweet-sour malt vinegar jam and a garnish of peas and fresh herbs. We get blowfish, caught off Georges Bank, from Wulf’s Fish, but you can use any firm white fish—cod, of course, is traditional and excellent. The tempura batter uses freeze-dried peas and gluten-free Cup4Cup flour, which creates a very crisp crust and holds that crispness longer. It’s a great flour for all such crispy batters. The vinegar jam is gelled with agar, and we like to finish the dish with nepitella, an Italian mint with a flavor that’s almost a cross between oregano and mint.

For the Malt Vinegar Jam

Lightly toast the caraway seeds in a small sauté pan over medium-low heat, continuously swirling the pan to ensure that the seeds are toasting evenly without burning, until fragrant. Let cool, then grind the toasted caraway seeds in a spice grinder until they are cracked but not ground to dust.

In a 1-quart (1-liter) saucepot, bring the vinegar, water, brown sugar, and fleur de sel to a boil over medium heat. Whisk in the agar-agar and boil gently, whisking continuously, for 1 minute to activate the agar-agar. Transfer to a bowl and nestle the bowl in an ice-water bath. Chill, undisturbed, until the jam base is completely firm and set.

Coarsely chop the jam base and transfer it to a blender. Beginning on low speed and gradually increasing to high, blend the jam until it is completely smooth, using the tamper to keep the jam moving. Pass the jam through a chinois into a container and season with the ground caraway.

If you have a chamber vacuum sealer, place the container, uncovered, in the sealer chamber. Run a complete cycle on full pressure to remove any air bubbles incorporated during blending. This will give the jam clarity and shine.

The jam can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

For the Split Pea and Ale Batter

Grind the split peas to a fine powder in a spice grinder. Transfer the pea powder to a bowl, add the flour and salt, and mix thoroughly. Whisk the ale into the dry mixture. If the batter is too thick, thin it with a bit more ale. The batter can be held at room temperature for up to 1 hour before frying the fish.

To Complete

Fill a cast-iron deep-fry pot with about 4 inches (10 centimeters) of canola oil. (If you do not have a cast-iron deep-fry pot, use another heavy pot with sides at least 8 inches/20 centimeters high.) Heat the oil to 350°F (180°C).

Season the blowfish with salt and lightly coat with the flour. Holding the blowfish by the tail, dip it in the batter to fully coat the flesh, leaving the tail exposed. Carefully lower the blowfish into the hot oil and fry for 3 to 5 minutes, turning the fish once or twice, until the batter is evenly colored and crisp and the fish is just cooked through. Transfer the fish to a paper towel to drain.

Fill a disposable piping bag with the malt vinegar jam and pipe the jam into a small squeeze bottle.

Arrange the fried blowfish on serving plates and sprinkle with the crushed freeze-dried peas. Garnish the plate with beads of the malt vinegar jam, blanched fresh peas, and mint.

Cook more from this book
The Whole Bird
Peaches ‘N’ Cream

Read the review
Coming soon

Buy this book
French Laundry, Per Se, The (Thomas Keller Library)
£60, Artisan

Monkfish Masala with Red Lentils, Pickled Carrots and Coconut Garnish by Glynn Purnell

SERVES 4

FOR THE PICKLED CARROTS
3 CARROTS, PEELED AND SLICED
1 TABLESPOON FENUGREEK SEEDS
1 TEASPOON AJWAIN SEEDS
1 TEASPOON BLACK MUSTARD SEEDS
½ TEASPOON ONION SEEDS
1 TEASPOON CUMIN SEEDS
1/3 TEASPOON CHILLI FLAKES
1 TEASPOON SALT
VEGETABLE OIL – ENOUGH TO COVER THE CARROTS
1. Preheat the oven to 90˚c / gas mark ¼, or the lowest setting.
2. Spread the carrot slices out on a baking tray and put in the oven overnight, or for 8 hours, until dried out. Pack the carrot slices into a sterilised airtight jar.
3. Mix all the spices and salt with enough vegetable oil to cover the carrots, pour over the carrots in the jar and seal. Leave for a couple of weeks (longer if you can) in a cool place before serving.

FOR THE MONKFISH
300G ROCK SALT
4 X 130G MONKFISH FILLETS
4 TABLESPOONS MASALA SPICE MIX
25G BUTTER
4. Sprinkle the salt over the monkfish fillets and leave for 5-6 minutes to draw out the moisture.
5. Rinse the salt off thoroughly under cold running water. Wrap the monkfish in a clean tea towel and leave overnight in the fridge.
6. Spread out the spice mix on a plate and roll the monkfish fillets in the mixture. Seal each fillet in a vacuum food bag and cook for 11 minutes in a water bath at 63˚c. Alternatively, wrap each fillet in heatproof clingfilm. Heat a saucepan of water until it reaches 63˚c on a cooking thermometer, add the wrapped fillets and cook for 11 minutes, keeping the temperature constant.
7. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat until foaming. Remove the fish from the bags or clingfilm and then sear on each side for 2-3 minutes until golden brown and crisp all over.

FOR THE RED LENTILS
SPLASH OF VEGETABLE OIL
½ ONION, PEELED AND CHOPPED
1 TABLESPOON MILD CURRY POWDER
225G DRIED RED LENTILS
500ML CHICKEN STOCK
½ RED CHILLI, FINELY CHOPPED
2 HEAPED TABLESPOONS CHOPPED CORIANDER
JUICE OF ½ LIME
SALT
8. Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a saucepan and sweat the onion over a gentle heat for 4-5 minutes until softened. Stir in the curry powder, then add the lentils, stir well and cover with the stock. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.
9. When the lentils are cooked, stir in the chilli, coriander and lime juice and season to taste with salt. Set aside.

FOR THE COCONUT GARNISH
400ML CAN FULL-FAT COCONUT MILK
1 KAFFIR LIME LEAF
PINCH OF SALT
½ FRESH COCONUT, FLESH ONLY, THINLY SLICED INTO STRIPS ON A MANDOLIN
10. Pour the coconut milk into a saucepan and add the lime leaf and salt. Simmer over a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until reduced by half.
11. Heat a frying pan until hot and toast the coconut strips for about 2 minutes until golden brown and fragrant.

TO SERVE
CORIANDER SHOOTS (SPROUTED CORIANDER SEEDS), TO GARNISH
12. Spoon the lentils onto each serving plate. Carve each monkfish fillet in half and place one piece of monkfish on top of the lentils and the other piece next to them. Drizzle over a bit of the reduced coconut milk, then garnish with the toasted coconut strips, pickled carrots and coriander shoots.

Cook more from this book
Haddock and Eggs – Cornflakes – curry oil
Lemon meringue pie

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A Purnell’s Journey
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Also available at Amazon: There And Back Again: A Purnell’s Journey

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