This was of the first recipes that Jonathan cooked for us when he joined the team at GAIL’s Kitchen. We were blown away: he’s now our Head Chef, so it must have been good. When you go to the fishmongers, choose your mullet according to how you want to serve this. For a starter buy smaller fish; for a main dish, pick bigger ones. The fishmonger will fillet them for you if necessary.
Ingredients
- 2 large red mullet, each filleted into two fillets
For the tomato and pepper sauce
- 2 red peppers, roasted and peeled
- 400 g can chopped tomatoes
- 225 ml rapeseed oil
- 1 garlic bulb, all the cloves peeled and thinly sliced
- 4 celery sticks, the outsides shaved with a vegetable peeler to strip off the fibrous strings, roughly chopped
- 1 small red chilli, seeds removed and chopped
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- pinch of caster sugar, to taste
- flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the Base
- large bunch of Swiss or rainbow chard, or spinach
- olive oil, for cooking and brushing
- 8 thick slices of sourdough bread
- flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
How to Make It
- First, make the sauce. Chop the roasted peppers then place in a pan with the remaining sauce ingredients. Bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce the heat, part-cover and simmer incredibly gently for 2–2½ hours, until the sauce is reduced and jam-like thick, dark and richly flavoured. Taste and add more salt, pepper or sugar if you think it’s necessary, then set aside.
- Roughly chop the greens if they have thick, slightly tough stems, separate these from the leaves and blanch for 5 minutes in boiling, salted water until tender, then drain. Drizzle a little olive oil in the base of a large pan over a medium heat. Wash the chopped greens and drain but leave a little water clinging to the leaves. Tip them into the pan and cover it for 30 seconds, then remove the lid, stir, and season with the salt and pepper. Wait until all the leaves are just beginning to wilt, then immediately remove from the heat. They should have reduced in volume by roughly half.
- Brush the slices of sourdough on both sides with olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt. Grill on each side until slightly charred at the edges, but still soft within.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Sit the toasts on a baking sheet and top with the wilted greens. Divide the tomato sauce amongst them, then sit the fillets of fish on top. Drizzle with a little more oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, until the mullet is cooked through – the exact time will depend on the size of your fish. To make in advance
- The tomato sauce can be made up to 3 days before and stored in the fridge.
