Hake, tapenade crumb, courgettes, mussel and bean provencal sauce

Yield 4

Author Steven Farhall

Prep time

20 Min

Cook time

15 Hour

Total time

15 H & 20 M

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Hake, tapenade crumb, courgettes, mussel and bean provencal sauce

Hake a fantastic white fish, not too different to cod, but a lot better value for money. More importantly it's a sustainable fish in the UK. In this recipe we are serving our hake with a really simple courgette salad that requires no cooking and is super tasty. On the south coast of the UK we have the benefit of sourcing Fowey mussels from about end of September through to April. They make a great tasting sauce and are nice and plump. The sauce in this recipe is all about using the best tomato passata you can get your hands on, so always best to spend a little more money on this ingredient. Finishing the dish we have made a nice crumb to give this dish some texture. Salty kalamata olive, with anchovies and capers give the crumb a nice slightly bitter, salty flavour that matches well with the rest of the dish.

Ingredients

For the Hake

• 140 - 170g 4 Hake supreme fillets
• Sea salt

For the crumb

• 50g White bread trimmings
• 100g kalamata olives
• 2 white anchovies
• 20g small capers
• 1/2 lemon zest
• 1 garlic clove

For the courgette salad

• 2 courgettes
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 100ml olive oil
• 1 tsp fine salt

For the mussel sauce

• 250g fresh mussels
• 150ml white wine
• 100ml olive oil
• 4 banana shallots, finely sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 250ml tomato passata
• 1 400g tin cannelini beans, drained
• 1/4 bunch chervil, chopped
• 1/4 bunch basil, chopped
• 1/5 bunch chives, chopped
• sea salt and pepper

Instructions

To prepare the cod

1. If you have a whole hake remove the fillets, remove the pin bones and cut into 140 -170g portions. Cover and tray with a thin layer of sea salt, put the fish portions on top then sprinkle another layer of sea salt on top of the fish. Let sit for 30 minutes then wash the salt from the fish portions. This process will firm up the fish, season it, make it taste so much better and easier to cook. refrigerate until required.

For the crumb

1. Blitz the breadcrumb in your food processor until fine. In a pan heat up a little olive oil and fry off the breadcrumb until crisp but not too brown. You can achieve the same effect in the oven 180oC for about 10 minutes, moving the crumb around halfway through to stop the edges burning.
2. Put the olives, anchovies, capers and lemon zest on a chopping board and grate the garlic over with a microplane. Chop the ingredients until fine, if you use a food processor it will turn too mushy.
3. Place the tapenade into a j cloth and wrap into a ball. Over sink squeeze the ball to extract as much liquid as you can from the mixture.
4. Put the dried mixture on a tray and dry out in the oven for about 10 minutes 180oC, again moving about a couple of times to stop it burning around the edges.
5. Cool down both the tapenade and crumb then combine together to finish the crumb

For the sauce

1. In a pan put the white wine and mussels and cover and cook until the mussels open up (about 5-7 minutes) then remove from the heat. Strain off the cooking liquid, preferably through muslin, and reserve. Pick the meat from the mussels and keep until required.
2. In another pan heat up the olive oil and cook the shallots and garlic slowly until well cooked but not coloured (about 10 minutes). Add the tomato passata and fry off in the oil until thickened slightly. I like to add the passata slowly as you want the flavour of the oil, shallots and garlic to stay prominent and if you add too much tomato it will just taste of nothing but tomato. When you have achieved the flavour you want slowly add the reserved mussel stock, chopped herbs and the drained cannelini beans. I normally end up using it all but you may want to add less, keep tasting the sauce until your happy with the result. Season as you go, the mussels will add an element of salt so don't go mad at the start.

For the courgette salad

1. You really need a mandoline to get the courgettes thin enough for this recipe. set it as low as you can and slice the courgettes lengthways. place the courgettes in a bowl and add the salt, lemon juice and olive oil and carefully mix. Leave to stand for 10 minutes, the courgettes will wilt and water will be extracted. Pull the courgettes out of the bowl and discard of the resulting juice in the bowl.

Cooking and serving the fish

1. To cook the fish you can pan fry the supremes in a little oil, skin side down, over a medium heat for about 7 minutes. Turn over briefly then transfer to a baking tray, skin side up. If you are using a sous vide, vacuum seal the supremes with a little olive oil and cook in your sous vide at 58oC for 8 minutes. Remove from the bag, either peel off the skin or blowtorch it to crisp it up.
2. Cover the top of the fish with the crumb and bake in the oven 200oC for 5 minutes.
3. Heat up the sauce and add the reserved mussels.
4. Place a neat pile of the courgette salad on the plates with some sauce to the side. Place a crumbed hake supreme on top.