Fillet of brill and two wines to match

Escoffier's books are full of recipes like this.

Fillet of brill with cream and mushrooms

1 brill

Fish stock ingredients (see Dec 2011 fish gratin recipe)

Finely chopped shallot

1 glass white wine

Double cream

Lemon juice and a lemon

Ordinary mushrooms

Salt and white pepper

Have the fishmonger fillet and skin the brill, or do it yourself.  There will be plenty of instructional videos on YouTube.  Each fish will produce four fillets - two from the top, two from underneath.

Brill bones make a lovely gelatinous stock, so see the December 2011 gratin recipe for fish stock cooking instructions as well as ingredients.  Do make the effort to cut out the gills with some firm scissors and the eyes with a small knife before making the stock.  Details like this really add up.

To make the sauce, reduce the fish stock by three quarters then add a generous amount of double cream.  Reduce again.  Add the chopped mushrooms having been lightly sauteed until their liquid is re-absorbed and reduce further. The sauce can be kept warm with buttered greaseproof paper placed over it to prevent a skin forming.

Place each fillet in turn between two sheets of tin foil and flatten with a rolling pin.  Season each one on both sides and fold to produce a nice square portion.  Butter a spacious baking tray generously, scatter with some finely chopped shallot (or onion), and arrange the fillets on top.  Pour in the glass of dry white wine and place a lemon slice on top of each fillet.  Cover the whole tray well with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes at 200C.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes outside of the oven before removing the foil.

Discard the lemon slices and serve up each fillet, sitting on a pile of wilted spinach perhaps, and pour the tray juices into the sauce, which will then need to be reduced further and tasted for acidity and adjusted with lemon juice.  You may not want to add too much lemon juice for the sake of contrast with your chosen wine.  Gently pour the sauce and mushrooms over each serving using a large spoon and serve rice separately.

In one sense this is quite a simple dish, so would be a good accompaniment for some serious wine.  Here are two wine recommendations courtesy of the Planet of the Grapes Online Sommelier Service:

"White Burgundy would be a classic choice, but I would also add the following:

Wien 2 2010 from Austria which is a blend of Grunr Veltliner, Pinot Blanc and Rielsing - crisp acidity and minerality with richness form the pinot blanc £14

or perhaps:

Blanc de Fume from Redde 2006, Loire, which is an oak aged sauvignon with really honeyed, nutty characters and complexity yet clean acidity on the finish £26."