22 April 2025

Fish soup with whiting, fennel and courgette


The original recipe was for haddock but that was not available so I asked my  fishmonger to cut two 6cm fillets from 1/2 whiting and took the off-cuts as well

Use a mini parisienne spoon to create 10 small balls from 1/2 courgette. Panfry them in butter with a clove of garlic and a sprig of thyme

Cut two 5mm slices from a small fennel bulb, boil them in salted water during 6 mins.

Season the fish fillets with salt and pepper and keep on the side, cut the rest of the fish in pieces and braise them in some butter. Deglaze with 50ml white wine and 1 tbsp Marsala.

Braise 200g tomatoes from a tin (without the liquid) in some olive oil

Then roughly hack 1/2 celery stick,  1/2 fennel bulb, the rest of the courgette and add to the tomatoes with 1/2 minced shallot and 1 minced clove of garlic

Sweat a couple of mins then add the braised offcuts. Season with a pinch of cumin, curryfennel seed, a star anise and Piment d'Espelette

Blend into a smooth soup.

Braise the reserved fennel slices in a glug of olive oil with 2 tbsp water.

Panfry the fish fillets in butter

Start plating with the soup, add the fish fillets. Put a slice of fennel on top and finish with the courgette balls and some fennel green. I had some leftover vongole and added them too 

(A Bart Desmidt recipe from his book 'Simpel maar goed')     



No comments:

Post a Comment