People often seem kind of surprised when they ask what we've been eating and I actually tell them. Its like you're not meant to eat this way. So I thought I might start blogging a few dishes that we eat, as we eat them. And tonight happened to be one where I was only cooking for myself so I could be a bit basic and just hurl some nice ingredients into the pan.
I've always loved fish and while my other half will eat some fish dishes she's a lot fussier than I am, so anything like a whole cooked fish is a treat for a night on my own.
I popped into town and picked up a grey gurnard. Its a really under-rated fish - firm, white, well flavoured and has a great structure that allows you to cook it quite hard without losing any structure. For some reason the gurnards (red and grey) have always been under-rated by the British public so if your fishmonger has them they're always cheap. I suppose its because they're fiddly to fillet and process, but thats fine because they're superb cooked whole. And best of all its very under-fished, there are loads of them in the ocean and its an ideal one from a sustainability perspective.
I had the fish monger gut it (I'd usually not, because if there are roes I'd like to eat them!) but otherwise all I did was give it a wash and slash the sides.
On the way home I stopped off at one of my mushrooming spots and picked a few honey mushrooms (Armillarea mellea). Its not my favourite mushroom but its one to remember the spots where it grows because it does go well with fish. Usually you find it on dead wood, but often peoples first response to finding it is to cut the tree down and burn it (it being a terrible pest that can spread between trees and kill them), and what you find is a clump like this growing on the stump. I suppose button mushrooms would have done, but I wanted some of these...
Its only the caps of honey mushrooms I use, the stems are rather tough and fibrous. I used about a dozen (with a couple of wood mushrooms thrown in), which were sauteed with some parsley and shallot until they looked like this...
I seasoned the fish with salt and pepper, rubbed some butter in the slashed sides, and put it on top of the mushrooms. This was covered and baked at 180C for 25 minutes before uncovering and cooking for ten more minutes with the cover off. That gets all the juice from the fish and the mushrooms reduced down with the butter to make a rich sauce. The result was superb.
Alongside a bread bun from yesterdays bake, that was dinner. A really simple, superb treat of a dish for a night in alone.
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