Tim's Turbot, Crunchy Crumb and Green Butter

Turbot. One of my very favourite fish, so meaty and delicious. This version is bread crumbed on one side very lightly for texture, and served up with a green blended, hot butter and fish stock reduction.

You can make your own tasty fish stock very easily with a few bones and the usual suspects, or you could easily use a shop bought version, or leave out the stock and just reduce some white wine and shallot as per the recipe below assuming that you want to keep things super simple, it will not be quite as good as if you have a stock and reduce it, but it will still be very good and since no one will be making a direct comparison you should get away with it. ‘Mum’s’ the word, as it were. If you are using a good fish stock add it with the wine and shallots as per the recipe below and proceed as stated.

This recipe utilises a thing I tend to have a bit of kicking about, it keeps very well in the freezer and takes only a minute a few ingredients to knock up a batch that will stand you in good stead for all sorts of things. This is garlic butter, but not as you know it. I use a lot more parsley than most people and I blend the parsley and garlic in olive oil to make a bright green paste, which I then mix with softened butter to make a hybrid garlic and parsley oil butter – this is known as green butter in my house, and you can polish it up a bit if you like with the addition of chopped thyme and very finely grated lemon zest along with the usual salt and P.

To make a batch of this butter AKA “secret ingredient number 3”

125g softened butter – beaten a little.

50g best olive oil

50g parsley, washed and roughly chopped

1 clove of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

(Thyme, Anchovy, Lemon zest all options)

Salt and P.

In a small liquidizer, blend the parsley and garlic with the oil to make a bright green parsley paste, with a hint of garlic. Beat this into the butter and allow to set up a bit in the fridge, before rolling into a sausage shape in a bit of greaseproof and storing in the fridge or freezer for later use. I tend to knock up this kind of thing when I have the parsley left kicking about after using the rest of the bunch for something else.

For two people

400g / 600g finest Turbot fillet, cut in half to make two equal portions

Panko breadcrumbs

A little flour

Good old Salt and P

1 fresh bay leaf

A little egg wash (Beaten egg and water)

Season the fish, and lightly dust the top with flour. Dip just the top in a little egg wash and sprinkle over plenty of panko crumbs and pat them on to make sure they stick, you should now have half bread crumbed fish. Place to one side whilst you get the sauce going.

¼ pint good fish stock (Optional as above…)

1 glass dry white wine

½ a shallot or a little piece of onion, very finely chopped

A small sprig of thyme, just the leaves

In a small saucepan, put wine, thyme chopped shallot (and fish stock if using) all together on the stove and bring to a vigorous simmer. Keep on simmering this until you have roughly only a tablespoon or two left, remove from the heat, but keep warm and handy by the stove.

In a large frying pan you know you can trust, heat a goodly knob of butter to a gently frying temperature and place the fish fillets in the pan to cook, crumb side down, continue cooking on eth crumb side until the crumb has gone golden brown and, then throw the bay leaf in the pan as well and turn the fish over, cook for another minute on the naked side and add a little more butter if needs be. After 1 minute, turn off the heat but leave the fish to finish in the pan for another minute or two, make sure the fish is cooked by checking to make sure it feels firm and set – do not over do it, overdone fish is a shame.

To finish,

Add 50 grams of sliced green butter and a dash of lemon juice to the small pan of shallot and wine reduction. Over a low heat, allow the butter to melt in, stirring all the time and never allowing it to boil or get too cold, add any juices that emerge from eth fish and check the seasoning. Place a spoonful or two of the green buttery sauce onto two warmed plates, pop a piece of fish on each plate and add a wedge of lemon if you like.

Enjoy.