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A fishy’ dinner suggestion from the Great British Chefs website

Hake with mussels, potatoes and light curry velouté

Ingredients 

• 4 hake fillets, weighing approx. 130g each
• 250g of mussels, debearded and washed
• 1 bay leaf
• 150g of new potatoes
• 80g of red grapes, halved
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 250ml of dry white wine
• 100ml of single cream
• 5g of mild curry powder
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• salt
• 150g of curly parsley
• 75ml of rapeseed oil, plus extra for frying
• 6 pearl onions, peeled and halved
• 20g of samphire, to garnish
• sea beet, to garnish (optional)

Method

Begin by preparing the parsley oil. Place the parsley and rapeseed oil into a blender and blitz for 2 minutes until completely smooth. Pour into a muslin cloth set over a bowl and set aside to strain

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the new potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the halved pearl onions and cook for another 5–10 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Drain and set aside

Place a heavy-bottomed pan over a high heat and add the mussels. Pour in 150ml of the white wine and add the bay leaf, then cover and cook for a few minutes until all the mussels have opened (discard any that don’t). Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or muslin cloth into a bowl and remove some of the mussels from their shells (keep a few in their shells as these will look nice in the bowl). Store the mussels in the cooking liquor while you start cooking the velouté

To make the velouté, add a dash of rapeseed oil to a pan over a medium heat and add the onion. Sweat for 5 minutes until soft and translucent, then add the remaining 100ml of white wine. Simmer until reduced to a syrup, then add the reserved mussel cooking liquor (reserving the mussels) and reduce by half

Add the cream and curry powder, bring to the boil then remove from the heat. Leave to cool then transfer the mixture to a blender and blitz until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve and season with lemon juice and sea salt to taste. Keep warm

To cook the fish, place a frying pan over a medium heat and add a dash of rapeseed oil. Add the hake fillets skin-side down and cook for 4 minutes, then flip and cook for a further 2 minutes. Season with a few drops of lemon juice and salt

To serve, warm through the mussels, pearl onions and potatoes in the velouté. Divide between 4 bowls, then top with a fillet of hake. Finish with the grapes, samphire, sea beet leaves (if using) and drizzle the parsley oil around to finish