Food / 10 June, 2018 / My Baba
Pan Fried Sea Bream with Saffron Mash
Ingredients
- 500g potatoes, 2cm dice
- 2 tbsp milk
- a pinch of saffron*
- 220g cherry tomatoes (mix of red and yellow if possible), halved lengthways
- 3 tbsp fresh basil, roughly chopped
- ½ lemon
- olive oil
- 60g chorizo, 1cm dice
- 150ml crème fraîche
- 200g sugarsnap peas
- 2 sea bream fillets, about 150g each
- salt and black pepper
Some nights you want to keep things low key and simple. Other nights you want to get a little more jazzy (though not at the expense of that simplicity). This recipe is for the latter. Saffron is definitely at the more luxurious end of the spice spectrum, but you’ll only be using the smallest amount by infusing its flavour and beautiful colour in a little bit of milk for your mash. A perfect dinner for an impromptu celebration or forgotten anniversary.
Here’s how…
- Put a large pan of water with ½ tsp salt over a high heat and bring to the boil. Peel the potatoes and roughly chop into 2cm dice. Once the water has come to the boil, add the potatoes and cook until you can easily slip a knife through them, 15–20 mins.
- Heat the milk (for such a small amount you can do it in a cup in the microwave) until it’s just steaming, then add in your saffron, give it a swirl and leave it aside for later.
- Meanwhile, cut the cherry tomatoes in half lengthways. Pull the basil leaves off their stalks. Finely chop the stalks and roughly chop the leaves, keeping the stalks and leaves separate. Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl, add the tomatoes, basil leaves and a few grinds of black pepper and mix together.
- Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Chop your chorizo into 1cm dice, add to the frying pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until it’s slightly crisp and has released some of its delicious oil, 3–4 mins. Transfer the cooked chorizo and its cooking oil to your tomato bowl and stir gently to combine. Reserve the pan to cook your fish later. Put another pan of water over a high heat and bring to the boil for the sugarsnap peas.
- Once the potatoes are soft, drain them and then pop them back into your pan. Mash until smooth and then stir in the basil stalks, the saffron milk, crème fraîche, ½ tsp salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Taste and add more seasoning if you think it needs it. Pop the lid on and leave to the side to keep warm.
- Add the sugarsnap peas to the boiling water to cook for 4 mins. Once cooked, drain.
- Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan over a medium–high heat. Season each side of the sea bream with ¼ tsp salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Lay the sea bream fillets in your frying pan skin-side down and cook for 3 mins (don’t move them while the y’re cooking), then turn and cook for 2 mins on the other side, until the fish is cooked and white all the way through. Remove from the heat. To serve, add a spoonful of potatoes to each plate, then add your sea bream and sugarsnaps and top with the tomato salsa.
Recipe by HelloFresh: Recipes That Work by Patrick Drake is published by Mitchell Beazley
