Sea bass with fennel, celery and beurre blanc

Serves 4

The fish:
4 fillets of scaled sea bass, pin bones removed
Salt
Any cheap oil to fry (sunflower/vegetable)

The vegetables:
2 bulbs fennel, with fronds attached
3 sticks celery, with leaves attached
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp fennel seeds, slightly crushed
Juice 1/2 lemon
~4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

The sauce:
3 tbsp. very finely chopped shallot
1 glass white wine
3 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
175g butter, cold, diced

Start with the vegetables.  Remove the fronds from the fennel.  Quarter them lengthways, remove the cores and slice thickly.  Likewise remove the leaves from the celery.  Peel the outer fibres from the celery with a vegetable peeler.  Cut each stick into 2 inch lengths, then slice each length into 3 or 4 rectangular batons.  Chop both sets of leaves.

Place all the ingredients except the leaves in a wide sauté pan with a lid and a glass of water.  Cover over a medium heat for 10 minutes to steam the vegetables a little.  Remove the lid and sauté over a low heat, stirring regularly for around another 20 minutes until the vegetables are softened and gilded slightly and the liquid has reduced to a glaze.  Just before serving toss the vegetables in their leaf herbs.

Two pan types are suitable for shallow frying fish fillets, to my knowledge.  Firstly, a heavy cast iron one whose base would be blackened by long service.  Secondly, any pan with a non-stick base.  If this base is also heavy then so much the better, and low sides to either pan will allow you to wedge an implement under a fillet more easily.  The process is as follows:

• Heat around 4mm of oil in the pan until hot (but not smoking hot... you will get the hang of it)
• Dry the fillets and season on both sides
• Lay the fillets in the pan, skin side down, without overlapping or crowding
• For the first 5 seconds of the fish being in the pan, push the fillet down with your fingers so the skin is flat against the base, and try to eliminate any bubbles, as the skin wrinkles up.  Actually in the picture below you can see I haven't done this as well as possible!
• Do not touch it for 5 minutes.  After around 5 minutes you should see the edges of the skin have browned a little, and the opaque, cooked flesh should have grown in from the edges and up from the base leaving a small translucent island on top.
• Wedge under the thinnest flat implement you have very carefully, to unstick the skin if needs be, then flip the fillet over using both hands.
• It will need only another 5 seconds then can either rest in the pan off the heat or can be removed to the plate at this point.
• Season again.  It will be very hot.

Beurre blanc:

Place all the ingredients apart from the butter in the pan.  Reduce rapidly until it is a mush of clear shallots and a tiny amount of liquid.  Remove the bay leaf and thyme then whisk in the butter 1/3 at a time over a medium to high heat.  The butter must be added from cold and you must whisk constantly.  Taste for length of flavour and balance of acidity and saltiness.  It will thicken slightly as it cools which is fine.

Serve with new potatoes.