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½ lemon, sliced

milk (optional)

white wine vinegar (optional)

salt

SAUCE

1 small hen lobster, boiled, complete with eggs or 250 ml (8 fl oz) shelled shrimps or prawns, a hard-boiled egg and some chopped parsley

½ leek or medium-sized onion, sliced

1 stalk celery, sliced

fish stock* (see recipe)

125 g (4 oz) unsalted butter

2 teaspoons plain flour

salt, pepper, cayenne

The fishmonger will have cleaned the turbot, but you will find it a help with evenness of cooking if you score deeply through the dark skin, through to the bone.

Next take a piece of paper, roughly the size of the turbot and well within it, draw the shape of a scallop shell – try and make this reasonably graceful not like a petrol station sign. Carefully cut out this outline and a few ribs to make a stencil: this you need for the final garnishing.

The next job is the stock for the sauce. Put the lobster or shrimp shells and debris into a pan. Cover completely with water, add leek or onion and celery and simmer for 40 minutes: if you happen to have plain fish stock handy in the freezer, use this instead of the water, but it is not essential.

Strain off the liquid and reduce it to 175 ml (6 fl oz). Put the softer shells hot into the processor with the butter and whizz them to a sludge-like state. Push what you can of this sludge through a fine sieve: you should end up with a quantity of lobster or shrimp butter roughly equal to the amount you put into the processor.

Mix the flour with a little cold water in a small heavy pan. Heat gently while you stir, so that the liquid thickens without coming to the boil or even close to it. Take the pan from the heat and stir in the shellfish butter. When the turbot is dished up and ready to serve, put the pan back on the heat and continue to stir until you feel the weight of the sauce against the spoon. Taste it, correct the seasoning, add cayenne, then the lobster cut up or shrimps or prawns.

Returning to the turbot, put it into a pan that will hold it in reasonable comfort. If you anticipate problems removing it to a serving dish later on, slip a wide band of double foil underneath. Put in the lemon slices, the milk or a good splash of white wine vinegar, then enough cold water to cover the fish. Add plenty of salt: if you do not intend to keep the cooking liquor, make it very salty indeed.

Bring – or as one authority said, lead – the liquid to the boil and then stop the boiling at once, maintaining the temperature at just below boiling point until the fish is done. Look after 8 minutes where you made the underneath cut, to see how things are going. You will then be able to judge how much longer will be needed.

Slide the turbot on to its warm dish. Put the stencil on top and scatter it with the sieved lobster eggs, or hard-boiled egg and parsley. Decorate with little bunches of parsley, tucked underneath. Carefully raise the stencil so as not to disturb the elegant scallop. Serve with the sauce in a separate bowl or sauceboat.

TURBOT WITH MUSHROOM RAGOT

We were standing dejectedly, one Wednesday afternoon, by the fish stall at Montoire market, comparing the size of the turbot in front of us with the size of my largest frying pan. Madame Soarès clumped up to us briskly in her Wellington boots. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll cut you a beautiful fillet. And I’ll give you a recipe. Extrà!’ In Madame Soarès’ hands, we are as spineless as squid; she treats us like gentle barbarians who need to be shown the light, and to be pushed a little for their own good. We watched her remove a large section from the majestic creature, then shape two pieces from it of exactly the right size. ‘Now,’ she said, leaning forward earnestly, ‘this is what you do…’

That scene took place, alas, over twenty years ago. Madame Soarès retired a few years later and comes no more to market in Montoire. The fish stall now is poor by comparison with those days. You have excellent service, but no good advice, although the friendliness is unabated. The French are feeling the pinch so choice and