Baked gurnard with a mustard cream sauce

Well, the heady excitement of Is My Blog Burning 5 is now, sadly, a thing of the past. But with my recent visit home to South Africa and all the fish I saw on the menu there (post still to follow, I promise), I can’t seem to get the fishy theme out of my head.

When I was growing up, fish was really simple. When I was a toddler, fish came in 2 types: fingers or cakes, both liberally doused with tomato sauce and possibly mayonnaise. Then as I graduated to “adult” food, the fish we ate at home was either kingklip or, if we were being fancy or having company, sole. So if it was firm, white and filleted, it was kingklip & if it was flat & usually crumbed, it was sole. Easy peasy. But sometime in the 1980s/1990s, the prices of both these fish went through the roof and my mother quite smartly switched to hake as our family’s fish of choice. I was never that mad about hake. I mean, it’s OK – like cod (to which it is related), it’s very flaky when cooked so pan-frying is tricky unless you batter it to death first (and I don’t mean batter as in assault…) and then deep-fry it. Or you can oven-bake it, but generally it is not the world’s most exciting fish. Once I had moved out of home and had to learn to forage for myself in the supermarket, I decided that even hake at ZAR 15/kg sounded expensive, so I asked the fishmonger for a substitute and thus stumbled on butter bream (well that’s what the fishmonger’s pimply assistant called it…). What a lovely fish! The fillets are about the size of kingklip fillets but have a lovely pinkish tinge to the flesh when raw. When cooked, it’s a firm fish, not as flaky as hake and (I think) tastier, and if you get small fillets you can dip them in seasoned flour and pan-fry them – yum!

But then in about 2001, South Africa decided that it was much more profitable (what with our lousy exchange rate) to sell the hake (and, apparently, butter bream) we caught off our coast to other countries, and consequently the price of hake shot up to almost ZAR 30/kg, and butter bream which was ZAR12/kg shot up to about ZAR 25/kg. At this time I decided that if I was going to have to pay this much for fish which weren’t exactly the height of culinary excitement, I may as well start buying more expensive “premium” fish and at least get some bang for my buck, so to speak…

And so began my foray into the world of poached salmon fillets, seared tuna steaks, grilled butterfish (this is the closest I could get to what this actually is – apparently this is what the Namibians call butterfish which is my best guess I’m afraid. I know it isn’t the dollarfish that Americans refer to as butterfish as I have had salmon-sized butterfish steaks…) and my favourite fishy dinner party standby, gurnard (see recipe below – at Anthony’s request!). Of course, now that I am in London, I have a whole new fishy lexicon – haddock, mackerel, plaice, sea bass, red snapper… the list goes on. So slowly I am building up a new supply of recipes to suit new fish species. But for now, I’ll leave you with a recipe from home. Enjoy.

BAKED GURNARD WITH MUSTARD CREAM SAUCE (serves4)

Ingredients:

4 skinned gurnard fillets (about 1kg)
lemon juice
chives
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup fish or vegetable stock
1/2 cup cream
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
salt and milled black pepper

Method:

Wash and pat dry the gurnard fillets. Season and moisten with lemon juice. Roll up and tie up with chives (leave some for garnishing). Arrange in a single layer in an oiled baking dish. Pour over the wine and stock and cover with a sheet of oiled greaseproof paper (I usually use tin-foil) . Bake at 190C for 15 minutes or until opaque and just cooked. Pour the cream into a saucepan. Whisk in the mustard, then the cooking liquid from the fish – do this slowly, spoonful by spoonful so the cream doesn’t separate! Keep the fish warm while reducing the sauce over a high heat until slightly thickened. Snip reserved chives and sprinkle over the fish before serving.