6 minute read
Hone Your Technique
To celebrate our great Welsh Seafood and help you cook up a storm in the kitchen for you and your family, William Richards from Cambrian Training suggests you try out this great recipe. Follow this step-by-step guide to preparing and cooking this fabulous Seafood dish:
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Chef’s Top Tips
• Remember to use all the natural cooking juices when cooking with shellfish as this is a money can’t buy experience your pallet doesn’t want to miss out on.
• Try substituting the Real
Welsh Ale for white wine and making yourself a classic French Moules
Marinières
Preparing and cooking Seafood develops skills learnt by apprentices when working towards a Foundation Apprenticeship in Professional Cookery and Craft Cuisine Level 2 and covers preparing and cooking of a range of Seafood. For more information about Apprenticeships contact Cambrian Training Company at cambriantraining.com or Tel: 01938 555893.
Ingredients
• 75g butter • 2 Carrots (cut to brunoise) • 3 Celery stalks (cut to brunoise) • ½ Leek (finely chopped) • 3 Shallots (finely diced) • 2 Garlic cloves (crushed) • 1kg Gower Mussels • 300g Double cream • Chive, Parsley, Chervil (finely chopped) • 10g Welsh rapeseed oil • 250g Real Welsh ale • Sourdough Loaf (Optional)
Preparing & Cooking your Mussels:
1. To begin, wash and clean the mussels by running under cold water and using a spoon to remove the beards. Once the beards are removed you need to scrape off any barnacles, rinse then place into a clean bowl. Repeat until all mussels are clean.
2. For the sauce base, you will need to melt the butter in a pan and sauté the shallots, garlic, carrots, celery and leek until cooked with no colour. (remember to take your time with the brunoise vegetables and make sure every piece is 2mm by 2mm, this will improve your knife skills)
3. When the vegetables are cooked, remove from the pan and place to the side to use later on.
4. Using the same pan, add the rapeseed oil and heat until smoking.
5. When the oil is hot add in the mussels and place the lid on and shake the pan to move the mussels around.
6. Continue to cook until the mussels begin to open then remove the lid.
7. Next, pour in the ale and reduce by half, allowing the alcohol to cook off and enhance the flavour with the natural juices from the mussels.
8. When reduced, add back in the vegetables you prepared earlier and stir.
9. Add in the double cream and reduce until thickened whilst continuing to stir the mussels.
10. When the cooking liquor has thickened, remove from the heat and add in the finely chopped herbs, and season with salt and pepper.
To celebrate our great Welsh fish and help your healthy eating habits for 2019, it’s a good time to introduce some fish to your diet and learn new skills too. Fish is high in protein and contains those all-important omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential to a healthy diet.
Here is a step-by-step guide from Chris at Cambrian Training to preparing and cooking a whole Seabass.
Equipment needed:
• Scissors, • Filleting knife, • Blue chopping board, • Fish descaler (or back of knife is fine)
Preparing your Seabass:
1. Firstly make sure that your work area is clean, your chopping board is secure (Top tip: for this it helps to place a damp tea towel underneath to help prevent it from slipping) and have a waste bin close by.
2. Descaling the fish: using the descaler tool all you do is rub it all over the back and belly of the fish scrapping off the scales also making sure towards the head. Remember to do both sides of the fish.
Alternatively, if you are using a knife, keep the blade facing you at an angle and scrape the scales away, while using the knife you must be careful not to scrape with the blade against the fish or you will be scoring the fish all over rather than making sure that the scales are all removed. Whilst doing this you should hold the fish by its tail, using a dry tea towel will help prevent the fish from sliding out of your hands.
Top tip: The ideal place to descale the fish is in the sink with cold water running, as you start to scrape the fish some of the scales will shoot off, doing this in the sink will help manage where the scales go. Once you start to scale the fish, you will be able to see where you might have missed and can then go back over to finish it off.
3. Once this has finished you should proceed to remove the guts. To do this you can place the fish on the chopping board, find the vent (or bum) of the fish and cut along towards the head in-between the top 2 fins and under the chin.
Running cold water through the belly will help clean the insides as you remove the guts and the bloodline.
4. Then you can go back to your chopping board, and using your scissors cut away at the 2 front fins and back fin getting as close to the flesh as possible. You can use a kitchen cloth to dry the fish at this stage if it still seems to be slippery.
5. Filleting the fish: Now you can start to remove the fillets. To start you should run your knife along the backbone of the fish starting from the head and slowly cut towards the tail. Doing this slowly will make sure you have control of your knife whilst cutting along the ribs. You continue to work your knife in long strokes along the one side of the fish until you reach the belly where the fillet should come clean off. Then you can repeat on the other side.
Cooking Pan Roasted Seabass:
The best way to cook the seabass is pan roasted:
1. Lightly flour the skin side, shaking off any excess flour then adding to a hot oiled pan skin side down. 2. Lightly fry until the skin shows some colour then place the pan into an oven for 3 minutes at 185 degrees C. 3. Once cooked remove the fish from the pan and serve with some wilted samphire, boiled new potatoes and a fresh Lava bread sauce made from the fish stock. Chef’s Top Tips
Preparing and cooking a whole seabass develops skills learnt by apprentices when working towards a Foundation Apprenticeship in Professional Cookery and Craft Cuisine Level 2 and covers preparing and cooking of a whole fish. For more information about Apprenticeships contact Cambrian Training Company at cambriantraining.com or Tel: 01938 555893.
