Читать книгу Simple Beginnings: Beading - Aiden Byrne - Страница 16

SERVES 4

75 ml white wine vinegar

10 white peppercorns

100 ml white wine

3 large sprigs of thyme

6 bay leaves

1 onion, roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, sliced

1 kg fresh cockles, rinsed in cold water for 2–3 hours to remove any sand

150 g potato, peeled and finely sliced

pinch saffron strands

2 egg yolks

200 ml vegetable oil, plus extra for frying

juice of 1 lemon

30 medium-sized nasturtium leaves

24 multicoloured nasturtium flowers

75 g ready-made tempura batter mix (available from Asian food stores)

4 small red mullet fillets, scaled and pin-boned

olive oil, for tossing

1 large banana shallot, sliced into rings

2 teaspoons superfine capers

salt and pepper

MAKE THE PICKLING liquor. Put the white wine vinegar and white peppercorns in a saucepan with half the white wine, half the thyme sprigs and half the bay leaves in a saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool and season with a little salt.

MIX THE ONION with the remaining wine, thyme and bay leaves and half the garlic. Heat your largest casserole-style pan for 5–6 minutes and add the drained cockles and the onion and wine mixture. Cover and cook for 3–4 minutes.

POUR THE COCKLES onto a tray and allow them to cool slightly (reserving the cooking liquor). Pick the cockles out of their shell and put them straight into the pickling liquor. Leave them in the liquor for as long as possible, up to 24 hours.

MAKE THE SAFFRON cream. Strain the liquid in which cockles were cooked through muslin or a very fine sieve place into a saucepan with the remaining garlic and the sliced potato and the saffron. Cook until the liquid is almost gone. While it still warm add the egg yolks and, using a whisk attachment on a hand blender gradually add the oil, as if you were making mayonnaise. Season with salt and lemon juice and set aside.

MAKE UP THE BATTER according to the directions on the packet. Coat a quarter of the nasturtium flowers, leaves and cockles in the batter and fry in hot oil until crisp. Season with salt and lemon juice as soon as they come out of the fryer.

SEASON THE FISH fillets and cook in a nonstick frying pan, skin side down, for about 1½ minutes until the skin is crisp. Turn the fish over and cook for a further 30 seconds. Season with lemon juice and cut each fillet into 3 pieces.

TO SERVE, put some saffron cream on each plate. Toss the remaining cockles in a little olive oil and scatter them over each plate. Add the deep-fried cockles, flowers and leaves, and then sprinkle over the remaining leaves and flowers. Add the capers and shallot rings and finally scatter over the fish fillets.

The trick with this recipe is to make the watercress stay as green as possible. Watercress is at its best in the summer months, and the English season runs from March to September. Like rocket, goats’ cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, watercress has suffered lately from having become rather trendy, but I still think it’s one of the most satisfying and vibrant leaves there is.