Impress with this step-by-step fish dish packed full of taste. Tip: Serve with a lemon and caper beurre blanc for an even more zing.

Ingredients

Impress with this step-by-step fish dish packed full of taste. Tip: Serve with a lemon and caper beurre blanc for an even more zing.

  • 1 medium sized sea trout fillet
  • ½ lemon (sliced)
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 2 tblsp dry white wine
  • tbsp of vegetable oil
  • 1 stalk of rhubarb (sliced)
  • 2 tblsp demerara sugar
  • 100 ml water
  • 150 g unsalted butter (cut in to small pieces)
  • 50 ml organic cider vinegar
  • 1 shallot (diced)
  • 80 ml dry white wine
  • 1 bay leaf
  • pinch of pepper corns
  • 2 tsp lemon
  • pinch of salt and pepper
  • 1 tblsp double cream
  • 1 tsp capers
  • handful of samphire
  • chive flowers (to garnish, only if they're not in full bloom)

Method

  1. Preheat oven the 200°c. Sprinkle sugar evenly over the baking tray; pour in warm water with rhubarb slices. Put into the oven for 10 mins, 12 mins before serving.
  2. Dice the shallot, put into the small saucepan with peppercorns, bay leaf, white wine and cider vinegar over a medium to high heat for approx 7 minutes until it reduces to about a tablespoon of liquid.
  3. Strain the ingredients through a small sieve, clean out saucepan, return the reduction to saucepan and keep for beurre blanc sauce.
  4. Check the fish for any bones. Finely score the skin side and season.
  5. Heat vegetable oil with a knob of butter in a frying and place the fish in the pan skin side down and cook for 4 mins on a medium to high heat or until the skin is crispy.
  6. Line a baking tray with tin foil, add sliced lemon, crushed garlic and wine, place fish on top and put into the oven for 5 mins.
  7. Heat the reduction sauce in the pan, add the cream and bring to the boil, remove from heat and let it cool to a medium heat, whisking all the time.
  8. Add the butter pieces one by one, not adding the next one until the previous one had melted, also lifting the pan off the heat to make sure the sauce doesn't separate.
  9. Add the salt and pepper to taste and the lemon juice.
  10. Remove the rhubarb and fish from the oven; let the fish stand for 2 mins.
  11. 1 minute before serving, put the samphire into a pot of boiling water, just to heat through.
  12. Smooth the beurre blanc onto the warmed plate. Place 3 slices of rhubarb on top of the sauce. Place fish on top of the rhubarb, arrange the samphire over the fish and sprinkle capers in samphire. (if the chive flowers are still in bloom, these will be placed in the samphire too)

Notes

By Chanelle Clarke for MasterChef Ireland.