I remember years ago, walking in the La Boqueria fish market in Barcelona, admiring the food display. The catch of the day calling to be transformed into exquisite dishes. There is something so tantalizingly enticing in creating a new recipe. In walking among fresh ingredients and wondering what might go well with what. In the magical realization that your dining room could be a fine-dining restaurant and you could be the master chef. All these thoughts sound undoubtedly true with the recent Coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
Cherishing the unexpected time together, we try to make every day count and find ways to give us pleasure. Dancing in the kitchen, while cooking, cuddled in the sofa watching a touching movie, dreaming of sunny beach holidays in the Pacific and all the things we could do beyond the lockdown. One day…
Making today special, I am cooking for lunch a delicious steamed in foil redfish filet, sprinkled with a fragrant mixture of leeks and carrots, scalded in white wine, on melting butter potatoes. Sometimes good food requires so little – a gentle combination of complementary ingredients and a few minutes of cooking to perfection in the oven.
Ingredients
- ½ leeks, finely chopped
- 2 carrots, finely chopped
- ½ fish bouillon cube
- 1 tablespoon white wine
- 2 redfish (perch) fillets
- 5 potatoes
- 70g of butter
- ½ lemon
- Fresh parsley
- Salt
- Pepper
Method
1. Peel, wash and cut the potatoes into discs. Place them in a microwave-safe container, pour a little water over them and set them at 750 watts for 10 minutes to simmer in the microwave. When they are ready, pour out the water and set them aside.
2. Finely chop the leeks. Peel and chop two carrots. Heat a tablespoon of butter and add the leeks, potatoes, a tablespoon of white wine and half a cube of fish bouillon cube. Stew them together for about 5 minutes, until slightly softened.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line the bottom of a tray with aluminum foil. Arrange the potatoes on it, spread the perch fillet on top, sprinkle with salt, ground black pepper and squeezed lemon juice. Put thinly sliced butter on the fish and cover with half of the mixture of leeks and carrots. Sprinkle with fresh parsley and close the foil so that no air can escape. Repeat in the same way for the second fish fillet.
4. Place the two foil packs in the oven for 20 minutes.
5. Once baked, serve the fish packets, removing the foil, but be careful to keep the rich sauce.
