Seafood Made Simple: How to make hake with a creamy chorizo sauce

This weekend’s recipe, a cream and chorizo white wine sauce, would work with most fish. Pic: Chani Anderson

Busy hosting Christmas parties for everyone else during December, in hospitality we tend to celebrate Christmas in the first couple of weeks of the new year.

This year we hopped on the bus, and headed for the small but mighty St Francis' Provisions in Kinsale. 

Thirteen of us for lunch, we went for a family-style menu, where everyone had everything apart from our in-house pescatarian. 

We were served a menu of hits by head chef Rebecca Recarey Sanchez, expertly paired with some funky natural wines by proprietor extraordinaire Barbra Nealon.

We kicked things off with some fabulous nibbles; anchovy-wrapped gildas and glasses of Roc’Ambulle Pet-Nat Negrette; Kerry coppa with briny cornichons, rock oysters with XO sauce; a blood orange and pistachio dukkah salad, a kimchi pancake with crème fraiche and pops of umami-rich trout roe.

A tripe and trotter Riojana stew stole the show with bold flavours, served with a fantastic chewy focaccia.

A plate of cod was served with the sweetest confit piquillo peppers I’ve ever tasted and a dollop of aioli. 

Oftentimes in this game, it’s the simpler plates of food, like this, that can be the most difficult to produce. Restraint, respect for the ingredients and intuition are all required.

To finish off, we enjoyed a plate of the excellent Lost Valley Dairy ‘Sobhriste’ and Coolea cheeses, with all the accoutrements, and a wonderful spiced-apple bread pudding made with leftover focaccia.

St Francis is my kind of restaurant — food dictated by provenance and flavour, rather than trends and techniques. Such a beautiful lunch.

This weekend’s recipe, a cream and chorizo white wine sauce, would work with most fish. 

Here, I have used hake, but this sauce would be great with pollock, haddock, ling, plaice, John Dory and brill. 

This sauce is also excellent with steamed mussels, can be served with chicken and is lovely folded through pasta.

Hake with a creamy chorizo sauce

recipe by:Aishling Moore

This weekend’s recipe, a cream and chorizo white wine sauce, would work with most fish. Here, I have used hake, but this sauce would be great with pollock, haddock, ling, plaice, john dory and brill.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 25 mins

Total Time

 45 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the sauce:

• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil

• 1 onion diced

• 3 cloves garlic minced

• 1 sprig rosemary

• 100g chorizo diced

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 100ml dry white wine

• 350ml cream

• For the hake:

• 2tb rapeseed oil

• 4 x 110g hake fillets

• Fine sea salt

• 1 lemon

Method

1. To make the sauce:

2. Heat a heavy based medium sized saucepan on medium low heat.

3. Sweat the onion, garlic and rosemary in the rapeseed oil for 8-10 minutes to develop the sweeter notes of the vegetables.

4. Add the chorizo and cook for 5 minutes to release all of its delicious smoky oils. Stir regularly to prevent the chorizo from catching and burning.

5. Add the smoked paprika to the potand cook for one minute.

6. Add the white wine and reduce by half before adding the cream. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes.

7. Remove from the heat and purée using a handheld blender. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve and discard the puréed chorizo and vegetables.

8. Taste for seasoning. Set aside and keep warm while cooking the hake.

9. Remove the hake from the fridge 15 minutes before you are intending on cooking it. Pat dry any excess moisture and season with fine sea salt.

10. Preheat your frying pan on a medium high heat for 2 minutes.

11. Add 2 tbsp of rapeseed oil before placing the hake in the pan laying the fillet down and away from you, to avoid oil splatters. Once in the pan do not disturb the fillet or move the pan. Allow the crust of caramelisation to develop evenly, approximately 2-3 minutes until the fish is cooked 60 percent of the way.

12. Using a fish slice, confidently lift the fillet from the pan and place on a tray to rest before serving.