Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [116]
Add the rest of the butter to the pan, stir in the flour and cook it for a minute. Add the wine and water gradually. Let the sauce cook down quickly, bring the crème fraîche to the boil and add it with a little of the vinegar. Check the seasoning, adding extra vinegar if you like. Put back the fish, onion and bacon and barely simmer until the fish is cooked, about 5 minutes. Transfer everything to a serving dish, sprinkle a pinch of parsley on each steak and serve.
PADANG SOUR-SHARP MONKFISH (Pangek Ikan)
The subtlety of this recipe is in the three acidities of lemon, lemon grass and star fruit. Macadamia nuts are to be found in good grocers and some health-food shops: as a last resort, use Brazil nuts, which have a similar waxiness. The dish can also be made with fresh tuna, bonito or grouper.
Serves 6
7 macadamia nuts or Brazil nuts
2 medium onions, sliced
2 large cloves fresh young garlic
1 level tablespoon fresh ground chilli, including seeds
2 x ½ -cm (less than ¼ -inch) slices ginger root, peeled
¼ level teaspoon turmeric
500 g (1 lb) sliced monkfish
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 stalk lemon grass, bruised
6 small bilimbi or 3 unripe carambola or ¼ lemon cut in thin wedges
Chop or process the first six ingredients to a smooth paste. Set the fish to marinade for 45 minutes in the salt and lemon juice. In a heavy pan that will take the fish in a single layer, put the paste, 4 tablespoons water and the lemon grass. Bring to simmering point, slice and slip in the bilimbi or carambola, or add the lemon wedges. Cook gently for 5 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking.
Put in the fish, turning it over so that it is coated, then cook it until just tender (about 10 minutes). Shake the pan gently and turn the fish carefully so that the slices do not collapse. Remove the pan from the heat and cool down. Cover and leave until next day.
Reheat carefully (which is why you should avoid overcooking the fish in the first place – it continues to cook as it cools down).
MOONFISH see A FEW WORDS ABOUT… OPAH
MUSKELLUNGE see PIKE
MUSSELS
Mytilidae spp.
Walking along the shore at Gullane a few years ago, chewing an occasional coral berry from the sea buckthorn which grows there in great banks, we were startled to see a scatter of vast mussel shells, giants of a brilliant navy blue, 10 cm (4 inches) and more long. In some of them we discovered huge mussels of a blazing orange. As we were so near the evident pollution of Edinburgh we made no attempt to gather them for a later feast, but I brought some shells home to use as little dishes for stuffed and creamed mussels of a more ordinary size.
At the other end of the scale come the small, sweet, delicate mussels grown on wooden posts in the shallow waters of western France. We visited Esnandes once, in search of its Mouclade and its spectacular fortified church. An astonishing sight, the Anse de l’Aiguillon, stuck with posts to the distant horizon, and fishermen gliding in and out in punts, harvesting the great bunches of mussels. Cultivation has been going on in the vast bay since 1253, or so legend has it. An Irishman was shipwrecked and survived by netting seabirds. Gradually he observed that increasing colonies of mussels were clinging to the posts. So he put up more of them and invented a flat-bottomed boat or accon to work his way from post to post. These moules de bouchot – bouchot is used both for the posts and the whole mussel-farming area – are ideal for Moules marinière as well as the local Mouclade.
This is not to say that the medium-sized mussels are to be despised, whether here or in France. Not at all. My one complaint