Salsa verde mayonnaise

A lovely accompaniment to fish.  The ideal device for making it is a food processer where you can put a smaller bowl attachment inside the lager bowl and pour in the oil while the motor is running.

I find it easier to chop the herbs beforehand, and in the case of the garlic it is definitely neccessary.

2 anchovy fillets - or more to taste, roughly chopped
1 tsp finely chopped garlic - or more to taste
2 tbsp finely chopped parsely
1 tbsp finely chopped mint
1 tbsp finely chopped basil - optional
1 tbsp capers or gherkins
1 tsp fine salt
1 tsp dijon mustard
Generous black pepper


Juice 1 lemon
1 egg yolk

75g extra virgin olive oil
75g plain vegetable oil

Place the ingredients in the top list into the food processer bowl.  Pulse several times to chop things as best possible.

Add the egg yolk and 1/2 the lemon juice.  Pulse again.

With the motor running add the oils, a drop first, then in a thin stream, then more quickly will be fine towards the end.

Add the remaining lemon juice, taste and adjust for salt/lemon.

A basic fish stew recipe

I have called this 'basic' so as to distinguish it from a classic bouillabaisse, in whose preparation one would be marinating whole fish in saffron, grinding little fish (or 'soupe') into a preliminary soup base in a mouli legumes etc etc... very happily I'm sure.  You may debate with yourself whether the below recipe is simple or not.  I can only echo the words of everybody who has ever written about food, which is to say that once you know how, cooking with fish is quite a lot easier than cooking with meat, if only because it's so much quicker.

Serves 2 generously

1 litre fish stock (see separate blog post under the fish tag)
2 shallots, finely sliced
1 leek, split vertically and finely sliced
1/2 carrot, peeled, split and finely sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbsp tomato concentrate
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch bits
1 handful tubed pasta
1 salmon fillet
150g raw prawns (in the process of cooking this I discovered shell-on prawns which have had their backs split and cleaned, and are also easy to peel)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Sweat the vegetables in the oil with a little salt, adding each a few minutes after the last: shallots first, then leeks then carrot.  Add the garlic, stir briefly then add the tomato concentrate.  Cook stirring for one minute until it has turned a rusty colour.

Add the fish stock and potatoes and bring up to a simmer, skimming away any scum that is thrown off and discarding it.  Simmer uncovered (which will help concentrate the flavour) for 10 minutes.  Throw in the pasta and simmer until cooked - another 10 minutes.

Add the salmon, skin removed and cut into large pieces, and the prawns.  Stir, cover, and leave off the heat for the fish to gently cook in the residual heat for a few minutes only.

Taste for salt and correct.  Grind in some pepper and crush a couple of the potatoes to thicken the sauce a little.  Top with parsley and a little extra oil and pepper.

Croutons, rouille and gruyere would be strictly optional though very tempting!

Rouille of aioli with well-crushed garlic, lots of lemon juice, mustard
and cayenne pepper.  Manchego cheese worked well.

How to make fish stock

As with all stocks there will be an element of 'throw in what you have and don't worry about what you don't have'.  However, if any vegetables are old and a bit dodgy looking then throw them in the bin instead.

The only differences between this and a meat stock are the length of time in the cooking phase, and the absence of a stage removing fat.  Both of which make it much easier in fact.

Ingredients:

Bones, heads, fins etc from fish, free of guts, eyes and gills.  It's fine to mix white with eg salmon or trout.

Possible veg:

Shallots
Onion
Garlic
Celery
Carrot
Leek
Fennel

Slice the above finely so as to release flavour in the short cooking time.

Others:

Parsley stalks
Thyme
Bay leaves
Peppercorns
A little salt
Cloves
Fennel seeds
Star anise
Dried chilli pepper
Allspice

(most probably not all of the above!)

Place all ingredients in a pan and cover with cold water.  Bring up to a simmer carefully with the lid on.  Using a spoon skim off any scum that is formed and throw down the sink.

Put the pan on the lowest heat possible and leave the lid ajar, so that only a few small bubbles come to the surface every few seconds.  Leave like this for 15 minutes only.

Cover the pan with the lid and leave for another five minutes.  I like to do this so the temperature comes down a little and things can settle a bit, which helps things not go cloudy when you pour it out.

Strain into a bowl either through a fine sieve or through a colander lined with a double thickness of muslin.

Boiling hard at this stage to reduce the volume and thus concentrate the flavour can often improve the result of what you are cooking.

How to cook fish pie

I could be completely wrong here, but I think if you put raw fish pieces in the base of a pie dish, cover with sauce, top with mashed potato and cook it, then some liquid may find its way out of the fish and you will end up with a pie whose sauce is a little inconsistent.  But then of course, the key to cooking fish well is to not over-cook it.  So in the below recipe, where basically the fish is poached in milk before that milk is turned into your sauce, one trick is to keep the poaching brief.  It also means you don't have to worry about fish stock.

To poach the fish:

Mixed fish pieces
Whole milk to cover
1 bay leaf
4 peppercorns
2 allspice berries
2 cloves

Other pie contents (suggested):

1 leek, halved vertically then sliced and washed
1 carrot, peeled, quartered lengthways, chopped and simmered until tender
Some button mushrooms or quartered ordinary mushrooms.  Sauteed in butter until their liquid is reabsorbed.
Halved hard boiled eggs (Cover eggs with cold water, bring to a simmer, simmer for 4 minutes, leave for a further 3 minutes in the pan then drain and rinse with cold water.)

To make the sauce:

30g of butter and 20g of plain flour per 400ml of milk (see below)
White pepper
Lemon juice

To top:

Stiff mashed potato, melted butter

Preparation:

Assemble the poaching ingredients in a saucepan.  Bring just to a simmer quite quickly then pour into a colander over a bowl.  Pick out anything other than fish from the colander.  Pour the milk from the bowl into a measuring jug so you know how much butter and flour to use, but place the colander back into the bowl to catch any further juices to use as well.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan then add the flour.  Whisk over a low heat for 1-2 minutes as it bubbles.  This is called 'cooking out' a roux.  For some recipes, though less so in cookery these days I believe, you aim to keep cooking a roux it until it darkens in colour to the degree desired and becomes nutty in smell.  Here any darkening or nuttyness is to be avoided, so keep the heat low.  Though if you don't cook it enough the sauce will be floury.  Enough said!  Add the milk 1/3 at a time, whisking and heating after each addition until thick.  Once all is added, simmer for 2 minutes and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and lemon juice to your taste.

Assemble the pie contents in a nice dish.  Pour over enough sauce to cover then use a spatula or spoon to just make sure the sauce is distributed around and under things.  Use a serving spoon to lay out large blobs of mashed potato on the surface, then use a large fork to flatten them down and into each other, and create a rough surface.  Finally use a spoon to cover some or most of the surface with melted butter.

Bake for 30 minutes at 210C, turning around after 15 minutes if necessary, and rest for 10 minutes before serving.  Enjoy!