Bream with grenobloise sauce

Being a seaside town it’s no surprise that most of what I cook especially around this time of year is fresh fish and it was to my delight my boss had gone fishing and caught some bream and some plaice and bought it back for me to play with. Despite Weymouth being full of restaurants, pubs and cafes with so many chefs and kitchen staff it is a shame that a lot of people I have worked with do not even like fish, I however love to eat it and love to cook it too, so I was happy to see the fish come in and I got to cook myself a lovely lunch with it I am going to show you.

To start I had to gut, scale and fillet the fish, once filleted I cooked it and served it with crushed new potatoes, a mint pea puree and a grenobloise sauce. You do not have to use bream with this dish I have also used cod, hake, skate, sole and plaice before all with this same grenobloise sauce as it is a quick, simple but tasty sauce and just great with fish.

Ingredients:

1 fillet of bream

1 portion of new potatoes

20g Soft butter

A couple of sprigs of Mint

½ cup flour

Splash of oil

For pea puree:

½ cup peas

Few sprigs of mint

20g soft butter

Splash of cream

Salt and pepper

For grenobloise:

30g salted butter diced (kept in fridge)

1 shallot diced

2 tsp. capers

2 tsp. chopped parsley

½ lemon juiced

Method:

Start off by dicing the onions, capers parsley and mint then keeping to one side, then put the new potatoes on with a pinch of salt on a medium heat, once the potatoes are cooked drain the water, crush then mix in the butter, chopped mint and season, keep warm until ready to serve.

 Next put the peas on, once the peas are boiling strain the water and put the peas with the other ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth, then transfer back into pan and keep on a very low heat to keep hot.

Put flour on a plate and season, heat up a pan on medium heat with a splash of oil and whilst it is heating up press the fish in the flour, turn and then take off and shake off any excess flour, place the fish skin side down in the pan and cook until the edges are golden brown then turn and cook until flesh becomes white and flaky throughout.

Once cooked dish up the crushed new potatoes, pea puree and fish and put a pan on a high heat for the grenobloise, once hot add the diced butter from the fridge and cook until it becomes a nutty brown colour, then add the shallot then capers, parsley and finish with lemon juice then pour sauce over fish.