Fillet of Brill in Lobster Sauce
Browsing the site "Great British Chefs" for dinner ideas, I came across a recipe for "Fillet of Brill in Lobster Sauce" by Simon Hulstone who is chef proprietor of “The Elephant”, a Michelin starred restaurant in Torquay, Devon. As they describe the recipe, the fillet pairs with a richly flavoured lobster sauce, while the asparagus and samphire underscore the seafood with earthy notes. Although it was rated as medium difficulty, it presented several challenges. (Fortunately, I was able to get assistance from a number of individuals for whom I am most thankful.)
The original recipe as noted from its name, called for Brill which was to be pan cooked in order to crisp the skin. This presented two problems. Firstly, where to get Brill? A flatfish in the turbot family, it is found in the deep offshore waters of the northeast Atlantic, Baltic Sea, and Mediterranean. None was to be found locally, so Josh at the “Mermaid and the Oyster” assisted by suggesting Branzino (aka European sea bass). Although caught wild in the seas about Europe, what we get in North America is primarily farmed in the Mediterranean. It has a firm, white, and delicate-flavoured flesh with a paucity of small bones making it a prized fish in Italian, Spanish, and Greek cuisines.
It is often grilled, but for this recipe it was to be pan cooked to crisp the skin, hence problem two. Not having a large enough pan, I wouldn't have been able to cook the required eight portions quickly enough before plating, resulting in fish served cold with soggy skin. Enter Chef Volek to provide help with this. Anton and I discussed a number of options and agreed sous vide would allow considerable wiggle room in terms of plating. The only downside, was I still wouldn’t get crispy skin as it would be removed. However, this would be a small price to pay for perfectly cooked fish, even if my timing was off as is invariably the case!
Having settled on sous vide, I next had to choose a cooking temperature for the fish. There is a lot of flexibility depending on the texture one wants in the final dish. I elected to cook it at 55°C producing fish with conventional firmness and flakiness. Much lower temperatures could have been used, and while seemingly this is all the rage in modernist cuisine, it yields what can only be called a gelatinous texture, not to everyone’s taste.
The next problem was that given the complexity of the dish, and indeed the whole meal, I wanted to prepare as much of the menu in advance as possible. The lobster stock called for using the bodies of the lobster from which the tail and claws had been removed which then would be used in the final dish. Unfortunately, that would have meant cooking the claws and tails also in advance, which would not have been ideal. Again Josh came to the rescue by saving a week’s worth of lobster carcasses and shells from their restaurant. I used these to make my stock mid week, and bought live lobster the day of the dinner party to freshly cook the claw and tail meat.
Having sourced the fish, I then had to find Samphire. For those not familiar with it by that name, it is also known as Sea Asparagus and Glasswort. Despite the name, it isn’t a weed and it doesn’t grow in the sea. Rather, it grows in the tidal zone on mud and sand flats around estuaries and tidal creeks. It is a succulent plant and very salty. After soaking to remove the salt, it is best steamed or sautéed. Promoted by celebrity TV chefs such as Jamie Oliver, it has become very trendy but only available at some specialty grocers in Toronto. Fortunately, Don at "Jubilee" in Oakville, very kindly special ordered some for me, along with chervil and edible flowers to garnish the final dish, which saved me a drive downtown.
Although not part of the original recipe, the lobster was also cooked sous vide. Why you might ask; because it allowed me to cook the claws and tails at different temperatures. As J. Kenji Lópes-Alt points out in his excellent article on cooking lobster at Serious Eat’s Food Lab, the claws and tails are used for different things. The claws are for steady prodding and moving, while the tail is for sudden, quick bursts of movement; although both are muscle, they are structurally different requiring different temperatures to cook perfectly. Think turkey legs vs. turkey breast. Like fish, there is some flexibility, but the claws are best cooked at 150°F / 66°C while the tail is most succulent at 130°F / 54°C.
Left over lobster shells from Mermaid and Oyster from which I made stock for the lobster sauce
Burning off the alcohol from the large dose of brandy added to the stock!
Perfect serving size: 1.25 to 1.5 lbs.
After dispatching the lobster, the tails and claws were removed. The wooden skewers kept the tails from curling when cooked.
The lobster was to be cooked sous vide, but in order to remove the raw meat which is adherent to its shell, it had to “blanched” for 2-3 minutes in boiling water. Once blanched, the lobster was immersed in ice water to stop cooking.
The tails (and claws) ready to be shelled.
To finish, the tail and claw meat were bagged separately with butter and chervil so they could be cooked at different temperatures.
I used a friends lobster press to extract the last of the juices tableside adding an element of theatre to dinner. This was then added to the sauce,
Yummy lobster jus!
Final plating: Lobster, Branzino fillet served on top of shaved asparagus and samphire, served with lobster sauce and garnished with chervil and edible flowers. Unfortunately, I took this picture before the final garnish of osetra caviar! My excuse? See the next photo!
What would a meal be without fine wine? (Now you know why I forgot the caviar!) The night’s highlights were the Montrachets. For any one thinking you can’t age a white, check the vintage of these.