Picassos Bream

I enjoy cooking fish. It makes me feel like I’m a competent cook if I can remove fish from the oven, with a flourish, and reveal a moist, flaky, flavoursome dish. I haven’t cooked fish all that often, short of fish fingers or prawns because I’ve always found it to be daunting. Silly really, because if you take the proper precautions – keeping the fish moist during cooking, not overcooking and using the right flavours for the type of fish – you will always have a successful meal.
As you gain experience in the kitchen, you also gain confidence and, more importantly, knowledge of the food you are cooking.
The daily chronicling of my cooking endeavours has also helped me to become more diligent in the kitchen, more adventurous and more conscientious. For someone who has been hitherto unable to keep a journal for more than a week, to keep posting at least five times a week is remarkable. I have previously flirted with all sorts of interests hoping to find something to keep me stimulated for longer than a month: aromatherapy (really!), starting a degree in English, photography, learning foreign languages. All have fallen by the wayside usually because I’m no good or I’m too impatience to learn the basics.
Cooking is different. The results are instantaneous, you get to benefit from those results and you can see improvement on a daily basis.
Don’t misunderstand me. I would loath to be chef or work in a professional kitchen. The pace is too rigid, too hectic. This is why I prefer food writing. I can please only myself, no screaming customers and just the occasional disgruntled family member who might have gotten a hair in their soup. I admire the food that chefs create, tiny, intricate works of edible art that look that they might have been fashioned by Faberge but it’s not food from the real world. It is fairy tale food that only a select few get to eat but that everyone has the accessibility to make. The reason most people choose not to cook in this way is simple – hunger! We want to eat big so we cook for ourselves! I resent paying for a restaurant meal and leaving hungry. Just because something is arranged like a Joan Miro on a plate doesn’t mean it tastes better than a big steaming simple bowl of chilli.

This is what happens when I try to be dainty and intricate---------->
The ramshackle stack that you see before you is my attempt at making a potato, turnip and carrot gratin, using one of those metal cooking rings to mould it. I only made one, my patience rapidly wearing thin. The rest of the vegetables were slung into an overproof dish with the flavoured cream poured over them. I vowed there and then never to produce something so fiddly, so small and so measly ever again. Obviously I did not learn from the Sologa debacle.

As a child I would prepare salads for me and my mum. I would spend ages arranging the food on a plate, sometimes in concentric circles with reds at the top and greens at the bottom. Other times I would produce sunburst effects. Finally, bored with this tinkering of her lettuce, my mother told me to not ‘play’ with the food anymore. If I wanted to arrange my own plateful, fine, but not hers. At the time I was quite hurt because I just wanted the food to look pretty but I learnt a valuable lesson. Salad tastes the same whether it is arranged into a sunburst or not.
Where is this preamble leading, you ask? Well, last night, still on our healthy food regime, I decided to cook the second fish in our freezer (the first being the Bass) – the curvaceous Bream.
I had planned on doing another Asian style dish, using coconut milk, wrapping the fish in some spinach leaves and scenting the whole thing with chili and lemongrass.
By the afternoon, I had revised the whole dish. As usual I wanted potatoes, and I fancied a Mediterranean theme. From here onwards the dish almost made itself.
I prepared a simple tomato sauce, flavoured with a fresh red pepper, some chilli flakes and a pinch of Mexican Oregano. The fish was laid on this gloriously red bed after being stuffed with sliced shallots and some fresh Thyme. On top of that I laid 'scales' of parboiled potatoes and baked the whole thing in the oven. Simple. After half an hour, this one pot dish is ready to serve. Conveniently, as Paul removed the fish, it filleted itself, which was very thoughtful of it, making two nice, meaty (or rather fishy) pieces for us. Each of the three elements infused the dish with their own unique flavours making a meal that we will be repeating again. Soon.
P.S. This constitutes my entry for Waiter There's Something In My...Pie entry, held this month by Jeanne over at Cook Sister. Hopefully the fact that the tail is poking out won't invalidate my entry but aesthetics won out I'm afraid.
PICASSOS BREAM
Ingredients:
1 Bream, gutted, descaled and sprinkled internally with a little salt.
2 Shallots, peeled and finely sliced
Spring Fresh Thyme
Olive Oil
1 Can Tomatoes
1 Red Pepper, sliced thinly
1 Onion, peeled and cut into thin rings
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped
Pinch Oregano
Pinch Chili Flakes
Salt, Pepper
Pinch of Sugar
Splash of Vinegar
3 Red Skinned Potatoes, peeled, cut into large chunks and parboiled
A little butter
METHOD:
Preheat oven to 180c.
Make the sauce. Gently heat some olive oil in a frying pan or saucepan and lightly saute the onions and garlic until soft.
Add the sliced red pepper and cook until softened.
Pour over the tomatoes, chilli flakes, oregano, sugar, vinegar and season. Cook over medium high heat for 20-25 minutes or until reduced and thickened. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
Whilst the sauce is simmering, peel and parboil the potatoes. Plunge them into cold water once parboiled to avoid them discolouring.
Prepare the Fish: Season the cavity and fill with the spring of Thyme and sliced Shallots.
Once the sauce is reduced and thickened, spread out in the bottom of an oval ovenproof baking dish. Leave to cool for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, slice the potatoes, into crescents to resemble scales or just circles if you're not feeling artistic.
Lay the stuffed fish on top of the tomato sauce, season lightly and layer up the potatoes. Sprinkle a little more salt, a good grind of pepper and dot with butter.
Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife point penetrates through the potatoes easily.
After 20 minutes, turn the oven up to 200c and remove the foil to allow the top to brown.
Leave to stand at room temperature for about 5 minutes then serve.