Fresh From the Sea
Roasted sea bream with sun-dried tomatoes, lemon and garlic
Serves two
The lemon, yogurt and tomatoes ooze their flavours through the slits and right down into the meat of the fish. You can use with any whole fish and I love to serve it with roast potatoes.
2 lemons
1 sear bream, weighing approx. 500g, cleaned and scaled
2 garlic cloves, sliced
12 sun-dried tomatoes
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
1) Preheat over to 180degC
2) Slice lemons
3) With a sharp knife, make nine slits on one side of the
Fish. Push a slice of lemon, slice of garlic and a sun-dried tomato in each of the slits.
4) Place the fish in a roasting tin and scatter the remaining lemons, garlic and tomatoes in the tin. Sprinkle over some sea salt and freshly ground pepper, followed by a good drizzle of oil.
5) Pop in a preheated oven for 20 minutes. Serve with roast potatoes.
Poached monkfish with basil hollandaise sauce
Serves four
I learned this dish when I was a chef at Ballymaloe House. Rory O’Connell was the head chef while I was there and his patience, knowledge, style and passion inspired me so much. This recipe was a classic French way of cooking monkfish.
4 monkfish fillets (weighing approx. 200g each)
FOR THE BASIL HOLLANDAISE:
3 egg yokes
1 ice cube
180g butter, cubed
Juice of half of lemon
2 tbsp of shredded fresh basil.
1) Cut the monkfish fillets into 3cm pieces. Place in a saucepan of boiling salted water and simmer for 5 minutes.
2) While the monkfish is cooking, make the hollandaise sauce. Place a glass or Pyrex bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Place the egg yokes and one ice cube in a bowl and whisk gently. Add the butter, one cube at a time, whisking constantly and adding another cube when the previous one has melted. Once all the butter has melted, remove the bowl from the saucepan and whisk in the lemon juice and fresh basil. Season with salt and pepper.
3) Drain the monkfish from the water and arrange on serving plates. Cover with the basil hollandaise and serve immediately.
Recipes from Fresh from the Sea, by Clodagh McKenna, published by Gill & Macmillan at €19.99
