• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

This kind of recipe has felicity and seemliness – like our church at Trôo, whose Norman walls, tower, capitals and keystones, arches and arcades have been cut and dragged out of the cliff which it crowns, and which shelters still a number of its parishioners.

Serves 3–8

butter

shallots and onion

parsley

salt, pepper

¾–2 kg (1½–4 lb) whole fish, scaled and cleaned

175 ml (6fl oz) dry white wine

175 ml (6 fl oz) crème fraîche or double cream

lemon juice

Butter generously an ovenproof dish which is large enough to hold the fish, without too much room to spare. Put in enough chopped shallots and onions to cover the base thinly. Scatter the parsley, salt and pepper. Lay in the fish, and brush it with melted butter. Bake in a fairly hot oven (gas 6, 200°C/400°F) for 10–15 minutes according to size, then pour in the wine. Baste occasionally with the juices, until the flesh turns opaque. Pour over the cream, and return to the oven for 5 minutes. A squeeze of lemon juice before serving compensates for the blandness of English cream. Serve scattered lightly with parsley and with plenty of bread or plainly boiled potatoes.

You can, if you like, stuff the fish – particularly the larger fish.

Egg and mushroom stuffing

The simplest stuffing for any fish, whether it comes from sea or river, is made from breadcrumbs mixed with butter, parsley and seasoning. Chopped shallot, bacon or prosciutto and grated cheese may be added for extra flavour. If you are presented with a fine trout or other river fish, a bream, tench, barbel or perch, I suggest you follow another excellent French recipe, and combine hard-boiled egg and mushroom in a more elaborate recipe.

For 6 fish

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons chopped shallot or onion

60–90 g (2–3 oz) roughly chopped mushrooms

3–4 tablespoons breadcrumbs

salt, pepper, nutmeg

grated rind of ½ lemon

about 1 tablespoon each, chopped chives and parsley

1 large hard-boiled egg, chopped

double cream

Melt the butter and fry the shallot or onion gently in it for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, raise the heat slightly and cook for 10 minutes. Stir in the breadcrumbs – a little more or less according to the size of the fish – and remove from the heat. Season to taste with salt, freshly ground pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. Stir in lemon rind and herbs, then the hard-boiled egg. Mix in a little cream, so that you have a lightly bound, not pasty, consistency. Correct the seasoning.

Any stuffing left over can be augmented with some extra onion, plus mushroom if you like, and laid on the well-buttered base of the baking dish. Follow the recipe above, but omit the final addition of cream. A little more white wine may be needed.

TROUT WITH MUSHROOM AND WINE SAUCE

The ideal mushroom for this recipe is the cep, Boletus edulis, but as it does not, alas, flourish in every wood, most of us have to fall back on cultivated mushrooms. Even so this is a good dish.

Serves 6

6 trout

150 ml (5 fl oz) dry white wine

150 ml (5 fl oz) light meat stock

1 medium onion, chopped

3 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons plain flour

1½ tablespoons tomato concentrate

175 g (6 oz) cultivated mushrooms, sliced or 375 g (12 oz) prepared sliced ceps

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

salt, pepper

Put the trout into a shallow pan. Pour over wine and stock, and simmer gently until just cooked, turning the fish after 5 minutes. Drain off the liquid, retaining it, and keep the trout warm.

Meanwhile soften the onion in the butter, stir in the flour and moisten with the liquid in which the trout have cooked. Add the tomato concentrate gradually, stopping when the flavour is spicy and rich, but not conspicuously of tomato, then put in the mushrooms. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Add parsley and seasoning, and pour the sauce over the fish. Glaze under the grill for a few seconds.

NOTE You may need to add more stock or wine or both to the sauce –