Cornwall - Take 2

On our next visit to Seabourne Fish, I went alone. This turned out to be an error, as I got a bit excited with the cash I had got out of the cashpoint the day before. Anyway, we ended up with more fish than you can shake a stick at. Yum.


Seabourne fish, by the way, is a lovely little place that's pretty much as good as buying fish fresh of a boat - you can either pre-order or pop by and see what they have (which I prefer, as you end up with random things you'd probably never have tried otherwise). So anyway, I got scallops, razor clams, swordfish and bream. The scallops were so fresh that they had only just been removed from their shells after being brought in from the boat, so I couldn't resist!


Anyway, Wednesday night was sophisticated fish night (or sofishtecated night) - so we had scallops first, and bream, with slow cooked fennel and sauteed potatoes for mains.


1. Scallops with a honey and balsamic reduction


First up, a nice picture of scallops

This one's so easy it's barely even worth putting on this blog - but I love it, so it's going on. Firstly, make a bed of rocket for the scallops to go on when they're ready. Next, put two tablespoons of honey and a large glug of balsamic vinegar into a saucepan and heat up on medium heat. In parallel, heat a non stick frying pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil and some lemon juice, as it should be piping hot when the scallops go in.


When the balsamic/honey mixture has reached a syrupy consistency, it's ready - taste it to make sure it's right, it should be a sweet, sharp sort of flavour - and add more vinegar/honey to taste if necessary.
At this point, add the scallops to the hot frying pan with the oil. Cook them for a minute (maximum) on both sides, then plate them up and spoon the balsamic reduction over the top. Eat immediately. It looks, predictably, something like this:

2. Bream with slow cooked fennel and sauteed potatoes


Next up, the bream. Cunningly I'd asked the fish shop man to gut and scale the fish -  I hate scaling fish. 


Anyway, first things first - the fennel. I got this really simple recipe from the River Cafe Italian Kitchen cookbook, which as it happens has several great, simple vegetable recipes. 


Anyway - I cut three fennel bulbs (this is enough for at least three people, we had leftovers) into eighths, seasoned and browned them in a pan with oil on a medium heat for about 20 minutes. Once browned, I added 4 cloves of chopped garlic, browned this as well and then added a ladleful of boiling water. I lowered the heat and left this to simmer for about 20 minutes. 

This makes a beautiful, rich, al-dente fennel dish - really tasty despite the lack of "interesting" ingredients.


Right - next. The bream. This recipe is SUPER easy - you'll need two lemons, a bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, some white wine and a little olive oil. And, of course, two bream. And an oven preheated to 200C.


I stuffed the bream with two lemon slices and a handful of parsley and laid them out on a baking tray. I poured over about 100ml of white wine, sprinkled the fish with olive oil and seasoned the fish with salt and pepper. Then, as a finishing touch, added a slice of lemon to pretty them up.

Then, in the oven for about 20 minutes - you know it's ready when you test the fish at its thickest part and it's firm and white. Serve on a hot plate, and pour its juices over the top. It's a lovely, tasty fish and goes really well with the fennel and sauteed potatoes (which I have excluded, as I'm sure everyone knows how to make sauteed potatoes...).


Next time: Razor clams and swordfish. Much more rock and roll.