THE SEAFOOD ONE
Fishy feasting for friends
THE SEAFOOD ONE
SNACK - PARTY SMØRREBRØD
STARTER - POLLACK CRUDO, SALMORIGLIO, CUCUMBER, ORANGE
MAIN - LINGUINE WITH GURNARD, OLIVES, MINT AND PANGRATTATO
PUDDING - LEMON POSSET, OLIVE OIL
Would you look at that! We are onto our FOURTH Dinner Party! Thanks so much to all of you still here, still reading, and still cooking the recipes! It fills my heart with joy to hear of your successes, so keep them coming.
This week we are tackling an ingredient that is often intimidating to home cooks - seafood. I, like many people, will always gravitate to a fish dish on a restaurant menu because I am far less likely to cook it for myself at home. In my case though, it’s not because I am afraid of it, but because I have lived with non-fish-eaters for most of my life. I absolutely love the stuff and love cooking it, but spending the money on fish for one always felt a bit indulgent, not to mention the cries of “it stinks!” from my bloody brothers.
WELL GUESS WHAT - THEY AREN’T INVITED TO THIS DINNER PARTY. And this menu is for those of you who have always wanted to do more fishy entertaining but have felt it above your skill level. Trust me - it isn’t.
When I was growing up, my late grandfather would be appalled if a family event didn’t start with a smoked salmon on brown bread canapé. It was family law and I loved it from my first bite; it completely converted me to fish. My grandpa taught me to butter, then lemon and season the bread, BEFORE adding the smoked salmon and then lemoning and seasoning again and trust me - it is the way to do it. I loved that I was the only child “grown up enough” to enjoy this snack, and believed it meant that I basically was an adult. Every time we left the house I would order fish just to lord it over my brothers. A favourite was mussels or clams, not just because I adored them but because I got my OWN finger bowl and shell bowl, ie. thrice as much paraphernalia than the boys which signalled to me (and only to me) how much cooler and more important I was. Mad that this hasn’t come up in my therapy yet but, I digress. Fish made me feel grown up and truthfully this menu does feel quite sophisticated even though the work load wouldn’t suggest it.
To start with, I wanted to echo grandpa’s salmon canapé in our snack this week, but also draw upon the absolutely ICONIC Danish dish Smørrebrød (which is most likely where he got it from). Beautiful, vibrant open sandwiches topped with delectable bits are such good party fodder and so easy to put together. Plus I couldn’t not pay homage to the Scandinavian way with fish as they practically invented it, and have you SEEN THOSE GUYS? If eating fish is the route to looking like a sexy Dane then sign me up.
For our starter and main, we turn to my old faithful, my sweetest darling Italia. I think most people get scared of cooking fish for a crowd because it is delicate, and sometimes precision under pressure is impossible. Its delicateness also means it doesn’t lend itself to being cooked ahead, which is another spanner in the menu planning works. At a party you want a menu that is as relaxing as it is pleasurable, you don’t want to be nervously opening an oven every 2 minutes prodding fish that won't cook because you keep opening the oven to check if it is cooking. So our starter this week (and our snack actually) doesn’t involve any cooking at all. A beautiful, elegant fish crudo that lights up a table and takes moments of work.
A fish pasta is a wonderful thing, but interestingly I often find iterations of it to feel more French than Italian. The addition of a fish stock or bisque absolutely enhances flavour but also doubles, sometimes triples the work. Italian fish pastas as I know them, especially the Southern style, often involve no more than a brief meeting of ingredients in a pan, allowing for the freshness of the fish or seafood to speak for itself. Nonetheless, making a large pasta dish for a crowd from scratch while they are in your house is not the one, so my recipe involves two parts - an adaptable sauce cooked in advance, and then that brief meeting of your fish, pasta and said sauce to create a showstopper. It is foolproof and I cannot wait for you to try it.
Unsurprisingly there are no fish in our pudding this week, but I have moved things to the land of citrus, a faithful companion to fish as we all know. A bright, zingy posset is the easiest of puddings and here with grassy olive oil and fluffy cream it rounds off our meal beautifully.
So without further ado, as the great Doja Cat once said; let’s get into it, yuh.
A NOTE ON KNIVES
I am passionate about quality knives and equipment, and when it comes to fish preparation in particular having a sharp knife is key. Blunt knives will damage your fish and make it harder to slice thinly which is super important in our crudo recipe, plus you will find knife work in general easier and you will get beautiful results. If you have already got great knives, make sure you are sharpening them. If you are in the market for a good knife, I love my Katto Knives because they are quite frankly gorgeous and they stay sharp for ages.
SNACK - PARTY SMØRREBRØD
Smørrebrød are found all over Scandinavia but primarily in the land of those handsome Danes. The name literally translates to “buttered bread” but they tend not to just stop there. Often made on dark rye bread, they are usually adorned with beautiful fresh things and are a particularly excellent vehicle for fish. My versions below are not true smørrebrød because they are canapé size (grandpa’s smoked salmon style), don’t all use butter and also are made with crackers too, but I was very inspired by them because of their elegant utility. A party smørrebrød makes a great canapé - they are easy to put together, glorious to look at and delicious to eat. I’ve given three ideas below, two using good quality crackers for ease, but they are very much interchangeable and so much fun to play around with! So have a go at creating your own by all means too.
CRAB AND APPLE
MAKES 12
200g white crab meat
4 tbsps mayonnaise
1 large red chilli, deseeded and finely diced
Zest and juice of a lemon
½ a granny smith apple, cored and thinly sliced
Small handful of chives
12 sourdough rye crackers, buttered if you like
Salt and pepper
Mix the white crab meat with the mayonnaise, chilli, half of the lemon juice and zest and season to taste. Slice the apple and dress with the other half of the lemon juice to help prevent it from oxidising. Top each cracker with a spoonful of crab meat, then top with a couple of slices of apple. Garnish with the chives and serve.
PRAWN AND EGG
MAKES 12
2 eggs, boiled for 7 ½ minutes and then cooled in iced water
200g cooked coldwater prawns
½ a ripe but firm avocado, sliced widthways into roughly 12 pieces
Juice of a lemon
60g mayonnaise,
Salt and pepper
12 charcoal and rye crackers, buttered if you like
Slice each egg widthways into 6. Mix the prawns with half of the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and use the other half of the juice to dress the sliced avocado. Pop a teaspoon of mayonnaise onto each cracker, then top with a slice of egg, a few prawns and a slice of avocado to fit round the egg like an eclipse. Season with salt and pepper and serve.
SMOKED SALMON AND CREAM CHEESE
MAKES 12
100g cream cheese, softened with a spoon
80g smoked salmon, roughly torn into 12
1 radish, halved and finely sliced
2 gherkins, sliced into 6 lengthways
2 slices of soft rye bread, cut into 12 squares
Fresh salad cress to serve
Juice of a lemon
Salt and pepper
Spead each piece of rye bread with the cream cheese- I like to use a small cranked palette knife to do this to get a thick shmear. Season the rye bread pieces and dress with a little lemon and then top with the salmon, radish and gherkin slices. Dress again with lemon juice, salt and pepper and then finish with a little bouquet of cress.
MAKE AHEAD -
You can make the crab mayo and boil the eggs the day before, but the rest of the garnish needs to be prepped day of. Luckily it’s all really easy!
SUBSTITUTIONS -
The possibilities are quite literally endless here- almost everything is interchangeable and totally up to your taste. Here are some other ideas for toppings that you could swap in.
Prawn mayo
Smoked mackerel
Pickled herrings
Smoked eel
Gravlax
Smoked trout
Sliced celery
Dill
Cucumber
Tarragon
Sliced Fennel
Pickled beetroot
Sour cream
Asparagus
STARTER - POLLACK CRUDO, SALMORIGLIO, CUCUMBER, ORANGE
This is such a good blueprint for a summer dinner party dish; it refreshing, vibrant and super easy to make. Obviously when you are serving raw fish, I cannot advise more strongly that you buy the highest quality you can find that is super fresh - you will taste the difference. I’ve used pollack which is a lovely, mild white fish fished easily in British waters. Salmoriglio is an excellent Sicilian condiment traditionally found on grilled meat or fish, but wonderful too with the delicate pollack. You will see two different types of citrus here; lemons and orange, because the lemon juice does the work of curing, and the orange zest is for fragrance. Orange and raw fish will always make me think of happy, sunny times eating fish crudos and drinking crisp white wine in Venice. This dish is lovely by itself but if you want to, take some slices of ciabatta and crisp them up like we did for the mortadella crostini in THE FAMILY STYLE ONE to serve with.
600g pollack fillet, skinned and pin boned - get your fishmonger to do this
½ small cucumber, peeled, deseeded and diced
3 tsp sea salt
Zest of ½ orange
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Juice of 2 lemons
150ml of good extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh oregano
1 small clove of garlic, bashed but whole
2 tbsp finely chopped flat parsley
½ tsp sugar
Salt to taste
Using a very sharp knife, slice the pollack widthways into pieces that are roughly ½ a centimetre thick. Lay the slices onto your plates, and sprinkle over two of the teaspoons of salt. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over and leave to sit in the fridge for an hour. Make the salmoriglio by mixing the oregano, parsley, sugar and oil together, seasoning to taste. Then add the bashed garlic and leave to sit too- I want the garlic to infuse with the herby oil but not overpower it or the fish later, so keeping it whole is best. Mix the diced cucumber with the remaining salt and leave to sit for 30 minutes as well. When the fish has had its hour, pour off any residual liquid from the plate and then dress with the salmoriglio, removing the garlic clove before. Take the cucumber and drain - it will have released a fair amount of liquid. Mix the cucumber with the remaining lemon juice, orange zest and red chilli and set aside until needed. When you are ready to serve, dress each plate of fish with the diced cucumber, drizzling over any extra cucumber dressing. Serve with extra lemon and crispy bread.
MAKE AHEAD -
You can cure your fish up to 6 hours before your guests arrive. Add the salmoriglio 1 hour before serving, you can dress and leave the fish to come to room temperature in the dressing. The cucumber can follow the same time scale.
You can make the salmoriglio 24 hours ahead, just don’t add any citrus to it or the herbs will lose their colour
SUBSTITUTIONS -
Pollack can be swapped for red mullet, gurnard, bream, bass, halibut, even scallops if you wish.
Play around with the citrus if you prefer lime, and the tiniest bit of rosemary is lovely in the salmoriglio too, not too much though or it will overpower.
Radishes would work well instead of the cucumber, or even sliced fennel.
MAIN- LINGUINE WITH GURNARD, OLIVES, MINT AND PANGRATTATO
A seafood pasta instantly transports me to Italy, to briny shores on the Cilento coast, to the tranquil blue waters of Calabria and Puglia. It also feels like such a celebratory dish because often when we cook pasta at home our ingredients are so humble. Here the beautiful fresh fish refines this hearty pasta; it is now both sophisticated and humble at the same time. I strongly advise you to use dried pasta with this dish and avoid fresh egg pasta - there is more starch in the dried stuff so the pasta water works better at creating a lovely glossy sauce, and the pasta itself is fabulously absorbent for all of that sumptuous winey liquor.
For the sauce
60ml olive oil
2 onions, sliced
10 anchovies
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
175ml white wine
900kg ripe cherry tomatoes, quartered
600g gurnard fillets, skinned and pin-boned - ask your fishmonger to do this
100g pitted black olives - kalamata or taggiasche are best
200g nocellara olives, cheeked (you can buy pitted green olives but I love the buttery flavour of nocellara but you won
4 tablespoons of fresh mint, finely shredded
For the pangrattato
50g panko breadcrumbs
50g pine nuts
1 clove of garlic, whole but bashed
Pinch of chilli flakes
50ml olive oil
600g linguine
In a large saucepan on a medium heat, add the oil and then the sliced onions. Add a pinch of salt and fry gently for about 10-12 minutes, until the onions start to very slightly turn golden. Then add the anchovies and melt in for about 2 minutes, then the garlic. The anchovies are working like fish stock here, you won’t taste them at the end but they will give the sauce the taste of the sea. Cook with the garlic for about 1 minute before adding the wine. Stir well and reduce by half, then add the tomatoes and the black olives. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 - 20 minutes until the tomatoes have softened and the mixture has thickened. Set aside until needed.
To make the pangrattato, pop the oil in a frying pan on a low. Add the garlic and chilli to infuse as it heats, and then add pine nuts when it has heated. We are not looking for smoking oil, just look for a gentle sizzle from the garlic and chilli. Toast the pine nuts in the oil, stirring frequently, until they are a light golden brown, then add the panko. Continue to stir and toast until the bread crumbs are also golden brown, around 8-10 minutes. Drain on kitchen towel and leave to cool.
Just before cooking, chop the mint and cheek the olives; this means run the knife down the side of the pip to remove a “cheek”, usually I get 3 cheeks from an olive. When you are ready to cook, bring a large pan of water to the boil and salt it enough as you would a soup- taste it to check! Reheat the sauce in a large pan on medium heat and add the olive cheeks. Pop your linguine into the boiling water to cook, making sure to stir it well. It will take roughly 8-9 minutes to be al dente, but you are better off checking it every so often. When your sauce is simmering, cut the gurnard fillets into large chunks - roughly each fillet into three. Pop them into the sauce, gently pushing them in, and then cover with a lid. Simmer for 2 minutes before removing from the heat. The fish will be almost cooked, and will continue to cook gently in the sauce while it waits for the pasta. When the linguine is ready, use tongs to transfer it directly to the sauce and mix gently, adding 1 or 2 ladles of pasta water to the sauce to loosen. The fish may break up a tiny bit but that's ok. Add in half the mint and mix that too, season again and then plate. Finally top with more mint and that lovely crispy pangrattato.
MAKE AHEAD -
You can make the sauce up to 3 days ahead and just add the fish when you reheat. The pangrattato can be made up to 24 hours ahead
SUBSTITUTIONS -
You can use red mullet, black bream, squid or prawns or even mussels with this pasta sauce - it is very adaptable to all seafood really. Even without the fish, it is delicious in fact.
If you don’t like olives, use capers or leave them out, but perhaps chuck in a squeeze of lemon for acidity.
Linguine is great here but spaghetti, bucatini or even paccheri or calamarata would work beautifully.
PUDDING- LEMON POSSET, OLIVE OIL
Lemon posset is an absolute weapon of a pudding. When done right, it is a silky smooth, tart yet indulgent taste sensation. It is so easy too - you are simply using the acid in the lemon juice to thicken the hot cream. It is a couple of steps off making cheese! I love this pudding because there is such an opportunity for infusing additional flavours; you could add vanilla or other spices like cardamom or cinnamon to the cream, you could grate fresh ginger into the citrus syrup or fold through fresh berries before chilling. A handy posset recipe means the posset-bilities (omg get me a pulitzer) are truly endless.
Makes 6-8
4-6 lemons - you will need the zest of 2 and then 200ml juice in total
1 orange, zest only
250 caster sugar
875ml double cream
To serve
200ml whipping cream, very softly whipped
6 tbsps of your best olive oil
Crunchy amaretti biscuits
Pop the lemon zest, juice, orange juice and sugar into a small pan and bring to a simmer to dissolve the sugar, then set aside. In a larger heavy based saucepan, warm the cream on a low heat. You want to bring it to the boil gently so the bottom doesn’t burn, stirring with a wooden spoon helps prevent this too. When the cream shows its first bubble and is at a very gentle steaming simmer, take off the heat and pour in the lemon syrup, stirring really well to combine. The cream will change colour from white to yellow and will start to thicken. Leave to sit for 5 minutes before straining through a fine sieve into a jug. This gets rid of all the pulpy zest and any lumps so you have a super silky mix. Leave for another 5 minutes to cool slightly, you will notice it continuing to thicken, so don’t leave it for too long so that it is hard to pour. Pour into your chosen vessels, cover with cling film and refrigerate for 2-4 hours until chilled and set.
To serve, whip the cream until very soft peaks- you want it to only just hold its shape. Drizzle your finest olive oil on top of the posset, then top with a scoop of whipped cream. I love serving this with crunchy amaretti to dunk but you could also use shortbread or cantucci.
MAKE AHEAD -
This dessert can be made up to 24 hours in advance, but remember no stinky fridges! This will happily set in 4 hours if in individual vessels, but if you decide to make one big posset it can take up to 8 hours.
SUBSTITUTIONS -
As I said, you can make this with lots of additional flavours. I recommend keeping the citrus juice to cream to sugar ratio the same and then playing with different zests and spices. I haven’t tested with orange juice but being sweeter you may need to play with the sugar quantity and also keep some lemon juice in it to help it set.
If you’re not a fan of the olive oil idea, top with pitted cherries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries; really any of the berry fruit! Or another nice idea could be chopped up melon or mango with a little bit of lime zest on it. Have fun!
TIMEPLAN
This first plan should help you see what you can get done in advance, so that for each course on the day you have at least 1, maybe 2 major parts of it taken care of. I appreciate that not everyone’s weeks are easily peppered with dinner party prep, but if you’re hosting after work or on a day where you can’t be in the kitchen, getting ahead is going to save your arse.
MISE-EN-PLACE
This is the fancy name we give to the food prep each section in the restaurant needs to do for their dishes. Hopefully breaking down each dish like this will help you feel organised. Use the hour before your guests arrive to organise your space too- I find it helpful to group ingredients by dish so it is all in the same place. Little ramekins are really useful for this.
STYLING GUIDE
PARTY SMØRREBRØD
I love these scattered on a few scandi-style plates in oaty beiges or blues, or even a couple of pale wooden boards would look lovely. For lower price options of scandi vibe plates Habitat has a good selection, or if you are looking for unique pieces I love potters Jess Joslin and Fi Underhill.
POLLACK CRUDO
This is such a colourful dish and definitely sings on white plates with colour accents, but it would also work beautifully on a modern scandi vibe too. Because the food is quite green, if you do have little blue in your plates somewhere this will help the green pop. You could plate this individually but you know I love a sharing moment so I just put over 2 or 3 main course plates. DO NOT PUT THIS IN A BOWL - IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL FLAT.
LINGUINE WITH GURNARD, OLIVES AND MINT
A huge heaping platter of this is so gorgeous to bring to the table and fun to serve and share, however it obviously looks fab in pasta bowls too, each serving topped with the crispy crunchy pangrattato. I like deep blues here because it reminds me of the sea, plus the red of the sauce seems somehow enhanced.
LEMON POSSET
I love setting these in glasses to serve individually - martini or coupes work well because they are lovely and wide for spooning, but these are also great “dessert” glasses for things like panna cotta or mousses as well as possets.
FOR THE TABLE
I love a bowl of leafy lemons if you can find them, they look and smell amazing and also are useful for cooking! Some little stems of eucalyptus always look gorgeous too in jars, especially if you can get some forget-me-nots to pair with.
So there we have it - a fishy feast that is an extremely chilled process. I hope this gives you confidence to cook beautiful fish for friends and I am so looking forward to seeing the results!! Happy cooking loves xx