Sea Bass, Oxtail, White Chocolate, Szechuan pepper!!!!!

Paul Walker

Paul Walker

11th October 2011
Paul Walker

Sea Bass, Oxtail, White Chocolate, Szechuan pepper!!!!!

I wanted to do a dish that featured both fish and meat and to also demostrate that chocolate can be used for far more that desserts.

Ingredients

  • For the Sea bass stock!!!!
  • heads and bones from 4 farmed sea bass
  • 4 Chopped shallots
  • 50grams parsley stalks
  • 1 Lemon, halved and sliced
  • 100mls dry white wine
  • 250mls water
  • 1tspn Szechuan pepper.
  • 20mls Rapeseed oil.
  • To Finish the sauce!!!!!
  • 50mls double cream
  • 50grams unsalted butter
  • 50grams white chocolate
  • Braised Oxtail!!!!!
  • 2 Oxtail, cut into pieces
  • 50grams roughly chopped carrots
  • 50grams roughly chopped celery
  • 50grams roughly chopped onion
  • 50grams roughly chopped leek
  • 100mls full bodied red wine
  • 500mls water
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed.
  • 6 sprigs thyme
  • 20mls rapeseed oil
  • 20grams butter.
  • To Finish the Oxtail and the sauce!!!!!
  • Outer leaves from a Savoy cabbage (the tough stem should be trimmed away)
  • 1 Chicken Breast
  • 1 egg white
  • 100mls Double Cream
  • 50grams unsalted butter
  • Salt and pepper

Method

For the Seabass stock and White Chcolate Sauce!!!!
Heat the rapeseed oil in heavy bottomed pan and cook the Szechuan pepper until begins to pop. Add the reaming ingredients and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes and strain into a clean pan through a fine sieve lined with a muslin cloth. Return to the heat and reduce by halve and then add the cream and reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Whisk in the white chocolate and butter. The sauce is now ready to serve.
For the Braised Oxtail!!!!!!
In a large cast iron sauté pan heat the oil and butter and brown the oxtail. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to an oven proof casserole pan with a tight fitting lid. Then brown the vegetables and pour over the oxtail. De-glaze the sauté pan with the red wine and bring to the boil (use a spatula to loosen the caramelized juices from the bottom of the pan). Add the water, thyme sprigs and garlic, bring to the boil and pour over the oxtail and cover the casserole pan with the lid. Place in an oven which has been pre – heated to 15o centigrade and cook for 31/2 to four hours, until the oxtail is tender. Remove the pan from the oven and lift out the oxtail pieces and allow to cool slightly.
Pass the braising juices through a fine sieve into a clean pan and return to the heat and reduce by 2/3rds.
Once the oxtail has cooled sufficiently that it can be handled, strip the meat from the bones and discard the bones.
To Finish the Oxtail and the Oxtail sauce!!!!!
Season the fillets of Sea bass with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet on the stove and add the butter and oil. When just starting to smoke, place the sea bass fillets in the pan, skin side down and cook for two to three minutes until the skin is crispy and golden brown. Turn over the fillets and cook for a further minute and then drain on a clean kitchen cloth.
To Serve!!!!!
Place two sea bass fillets in a cross pattern on each of four warmed serving plates. Unwrap the oxtail/cabbage sausages and cut in halve on the diagonal and arrange on top of the sea bass fillets. Spoon round the oxtail reduction and the white chocolate/Szechuan pepper sauce and serve.
NOTES!!!!
Recently I downloaded and watched a video from youtube of Chef Simon Rogan (L'enclume, Cartmel, Cumbria) preparing an assiette of Lamb. When it cam to making the Lamb stock, he roasted the bones, vegetables and aromatics in the oven (the conventional way) but then cooked the actual stock in a pressure cooker. This actually makes a lot of sense to me, as the stock was cooked in 30 minutes instead of the usual 4 to 5 hours that it would take to simmer over a low heat in the normal way. The other advantage of using the pressure cooker is that it is more economical in terms of fuel usage. Net result being a cost saving in terms of fuel cost and usage.

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