Seafood Made Simple: Capers sourced closer to home feel so satisfying

We’ve experimented and made our own in Goldie, first salting in coarse Achill Island Sea salt. 

Then washed and pickled to further preserve them in a vinegar solution. 

Our best results have been with wild garlic ransoms, the buds of the nasturtium plant and, more recently, the stalks of Florence fennel. 

There is something immensely satisfying about preserving a flavour from a particular season and indeed something even more satisfying when you can make a product with local ingredients instead of importing.

Brown butter has been all the rage with us chefs for the last couple of years, from brown butter ice cream to brown butter brownies and brown butter poached fish.

Butter — an already perfect product — can be made even more delicious by cooking. 

This of course is not a contemporary process but a fundamental element of classical French cookery. ‘Beurre Noisette’ or in the case of this weekend’s recipe, ‘Caper Noisette’, is one of the first sauces a trainee chef will learn how to make. 

It's a speedy sauce made by cooking butter to remove its water content and caramelising the milk solids present yielding a toasty and nutty flavoured sauce.

The butter is first melted and then cooked before being finished with fresh chopped and segmented lemon, capers and parsley. 

This sauce works with so many fish species:I’ve served it with flat and round fish, monkfish and it’s also excellent with root vegetables and brassicas this time of year.

Plaice & cauliflower with capers & brown butter

recipe by:Aishling Moore

I’m using plaice here but would work megrim, brill, lemon sole, dover sole and any round fish will work equally well.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 45 mins

Cooking Time

 40 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 25 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 150g unsalted butter

• 1 lemon, segmented and chopped

• 2 tbsp capers, drained and roughly chopped

• 1 small bunch parsley, chopped

• 480g plaice fillets (or 120g per person)

• 1 cauliflower

• 2 tbsp rapeseed oil

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Begin by browning the butter. Place the unsalted butter in a small heavy-based pot and place on a medium-low heat. Once the butter has melted slowly turn the heat up to medium-high to cook off the water. Stir regularly to prevent the base from burning. Cook for 4-5 minutes until the milk solids are brown and appear like flecks of caramel throughout the melted butter.

3. Add the lemon segments capers and chopped parsley. Taste and season with sea salt. Set aside and keep warm.

4. To prepare the cauliflower, cut the head into small florets and place in a medium bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil and toss to coat. Season with fine sea salt and place on a roasting tray. Bake in the oven for 15- 20 minutes until caramelised.

5. While the cauliflower is roasting in the oven cook the plaice. Pat the fillets dry with some kitchen paper to remove excess water. Season lightly with fine sea salt.

6. Preheat a carbon steel or non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat for two minutes. Add the rapeseed oil.

7. Working in batches lay the plaice fillets in the pan skin-side down. To avoid oil splatters lay them away from you. Do not disturb the fillet or move the pan. Once the fish is golden brown on one side use a fish slice confidently to lift the fillet from the pan and place on a lightly greased tray. Once all the fillets are seared on one side place the tray in the oven for 3- 4 minutes to finish cooking. Serve immediately with the roast cauliflower and brown butter sauce.

Chef know-how

Store fish fillets on a plate or tray in a single layer in the fridge. Avoid stacking fillets and covering in plastic: both will cause the fish to sweat and leech water.

Remove the fillets of plaice from the fridge 15 minutes before cooking.

If you are nervous about the fillets sticking to the pan you can coat them lightly in flour to create a non-stick barrier. Make sure you shake off the excess flour before adding to the pan.

Allowing the crust of caramelisation to develop evenly at the beginning of cooking the fish is key and will make it much easier to remove the fillets from the pan.

No matter what piece of fish you are cooking when removing from a pan always lift from the tail end of the fish. It causes less damage to the skin.