The girlfriend is a mad seafood fan but now that it’s dark at 6pm and the temperature drops as soon as the sun goes down the weather isn’t exactly conducive to sitting outside shelling prawns and barbequing fish.
This dish however is the perfect winter substitute. Fresh snapper fillets, prawns, slow braised fennel in a creamy sauce topped with crispy potato - real comfort food for any seafood lover.
A quick note about the Snapper fillets
Most fishmongers sell their snapper fillets with the skin still on. This is great if you’re cooking them on the BBQ because you get that awesome crispy outer layer but the skin doesn’t work in a pie.
Just ask your fishmonger to take the skin off for you – they are more than happy to do this and because they have all the ultra sharp flexible knives at hand it takes them seconds.
I tried de-skinning snapper at home myself once using my regular chefs knife and ended up with what would be more described as minced fish rather than a fillet.
Serves 2-3 people, but you can double it up if you like
What you’ll need
- 175ml milk
- 175ml good quality fish stock
- 35g butter
- 2 baby golden shallots, peeled and sliced
- ½ head of fennel, finely chopped and fronds reserved. If you can find the baby fennel use a who
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
- 35g plain flour
- 25ml lemon juice
- 400g skinless snapper fillets chopped into 2-3cm cubes (order 500g with the skin on and ask your fishmonger to de-skin them for you)
- 6 medium green prawns, peeled, deveined and chopped into thirds (bite size pieces)
- 1 small handful of finely chopped dill
- 2 green shallots/scallions – finely chopped
- 4 large brushed/washed potatoes – unpeeled but sliced into thins
- 30g melted butter
- Steamed green beans to serve
How to put it together
1. Combine the milk and stock in a small saucepan and place over a medium heat. You want to just bring it to boil and then take it off the heat. Keep an eye on it and when you see the little bubbles start to form before it goes into a raging boil its ready. This helps infuse all the flavours.
2. Melt the butter in another heavy based saucepan over a medium heat and add the golden shallots, fennel and garlic. Cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring until nice and tender.
3. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
4. Gradually add the warm stock mixture, stirring constantly until nice and smooth.
5. Add the lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes until nice and thick.
6. Remove the saucepan from the heat, add the snapper and prawns and give it a good stir to combine.
7. Finley chop the reserved fennel fronds and add to the mixture with the dill and green shallots/scallions.
8. Pre heat your oven to 180C
9. Take a nice oven proof dish and rub some butter over it.
9. Place a layer of the sliced potatoes on the bottom of the dish in an overlapping format, then spoon in the filling. Place a second layer of potatoes on top.
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10. Brush the top of the potatoes with some melted butter and pop in the oven 40 minutes until the potatoes and nice and golden.
11. Slice with a sharp knife and plate up with some steamed greens.
