Ingredients (serves 6)
The catch of the day (seabass caught on hook. You can use:
- 1,8 kg of orata, pagello, John Dory, gallinella, red snapper)
- 12 slices of bacon
- 6 artichokes
- 1 small scallion
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 50 g of oil
- 50 g of butter
- 30 ml of dry white wine
- 1 ladle of vegetable stock
For the sauce:
- 3 egg yolks
- 50 ml of water
- 5gof double concentrated tomato paste
- 200 g of butter
- 40 ml of Sherry vinegar salt and aromatic pepper
For the quenelle:
- 300 g of red-skinned yellow- fleshed potatoes
- 50 g of butter
- 4 chive scapes
- salt
Procedure
Fillet the sh keeping the skin on, eliminate the bone, then cut it into 6 pieces and dress them with a little oil, salt and pepper. Wrap each piece in two slices of bacon and place them, skin-side down, in a non-stick pan lightly greased with oil. Let the sh develop color over very low heat for 15 minutes, without ever turning it over.
While the sh cooks, prepare the artichokes: clean them by eliminating the hard outermost leaves, the thorns, and scraping the stems. Then cut them in halves, remove the ‘beard’ and julienne them. Peel the scallion and julienne it as well. Heat a pan with some oil and a tablespoon of butter. When the butter has melted completely, put in the artichokes and the scallion and fry them over high heat for about 1 minute. Pour the white wine over them and let the alcohol cook out entirely and, only at the end,
add the thyme leaves. Add a ladle of vegetable stock and cook for 5 minutes.
Prepare the quenelle: cover the bottom of a casserole dish with some coarse salt, then add the unpeeled potatoes, cover them completely with more salt, and bake them in the oven at 160°C for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Once they are ready, take them out of the oven, remove all the salt, peel them and mash them with a fork or with a masher. Add the butter, the nely chopped chives, and mix until the butter melts completely and has soaked into the potatoes.
Prepare the sauce: in a small saucepan warm up the vinegar with the tomato paste and a pinch of salt, the water, and a dash of pepper. Stir to loosen up the paste, without bringing to a boil. Put the yolks in a bowl and pour the warm mixture over them, stirring vigorously with a whisk. Then put the mixture in a bain-marie and keep stirring it until it mounts. When it’s ready, turn the heat off and keep it on the stove top so it doesn’t cool.
Plate: make a layer of artichokes on a plate and place a piece of sh on it. Use two spoons to create a potato quenelle and put it on the dish. Top with the sauce.
Wine
This sh recipe allows a wider range of choices: from a still and fragrant white wine that exalts the delicacy of the sh, such as Vernaccia di San Gimignano, to a rosé wine that goes perfectly well with the pancetta, such as Cirò.
