pan fried sea bass with carrots, leeks & caper butter sauce

The outlaws were heading into town.

Wait, let me start that again...

My girlfriend's lovely parents were coming round for dinner.

Unfortunately for me, my cooking has been bigged up somewhat by my loved one (and admittedly, also by me), so I had quite a lot to live up to. As you know, I always try to come up with dishes that have the look, feel & taste of restaurant standard plates of food, but which don't break the bank, so this was my chance to go with that & give la familia something very special without having to use any ingredients that rhyme with 'mobster'.

Vegetables are always a good option. They're cheap, versatile, tasty, and good for us! So they were on the shopping list without a second thought. The nice people over at Kish Fish in Smithfield had also just sent me a text message informing me that sea bass fillets were on offer, so that also seemed like a no-brainer - who doesn't like fresh, simply-cooked fish, right?! And as we know, many people have the notion that fish is ridiculously difficult to cook - when in fact it's one of the simplest (shhh don't tell anyone!), so always a good one when trying to impress an Irish Mammy...

Then I just needed a sauce. Butter sauces are light, so great with fish dishes like this. The lemon is lovely with the bass, and the capers add a nice bit of zing against the sweet vegetables.

Try this dish out, and if you can't get hold of sea bass, go for whatever fish you can - trout, salmon, mackerel etc; they all work just as well.

Suffice to say, The Parents were suitably impressed, and loved the food. Phew! Ah but then there was the main course...

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 4 fillets sea bass, cut into 2 or 3 pieces each
• 4 medium carrots, peeled & cut into matchsticks
• 1 large leek (or 2 medium), cleaned & cut into matchsticks
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 150g butter, diced
• 2 tsp capers, drained
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• Small handful of samphire, to serve (optional)

Method

1. Heat a large sauté pan (or deep frying pan) over a medium-high heat, add 100g of the butter and throw in the leeks & carrots. Sauté for 5 minutes or so, until starting to soften. Lower the heat to keep warm & soften a little more, whilst you cook the fish.
2. Heat a separate non-stick frying pan until hot. Season the fish lightly on the flesh side with a little salt (not much), and add the oil to the pan.
3. Carefully place the fish in the pan, skin side down, being careful not to splash yourself with the hot oil (lay the fish away from you to prevent this).
4. Press the fillets down for a few seconds if necessary to stop them curling up and stay nice & flat - this helps give you a lovely crisp skin. If you're having the samphire, blanch this in boiling water now for around a minute or so until softened, then drain and put to one side.
5. When the skin has coloured and crisped up, turn the fish and cook for another minute or so on the flesh side, until cooked through. Remove and place on a warm plate.
6. In the same pan as you cooked the fish, add the remaining 50g of butter and add the capers. When the butter has melted, squeeze in the lemon juice and mix together gently to ensure all the capers have taken on the flavours.
7. To serve, spoon the carrot & leek mixture onto a plate and place the sea bass on top before spooning over the caper butter.
8. Finally, to finish off the samphire, just throw it into the remainders of the caper butter and stir around for a few seconds until warmed through. Place on top of the plate, and of course, don't forget to arrange pretentiously!

This is lovely with a nice big glass of cold, dry white wine - which is also useful for drowning your sorrows once you start wishing you'd have made more!

Serves 4