Aishling Moore: Add some black pudding to your fish dishes and thank me later

Any black pudding will work for this recipe, so use your favourite or whatever pudding is produced in your locale. Picture: Chani Anderson

Black pudding is one of my favourite products from Ireland’s pantry of ingredients. Not just for breakfast, its great with leafy greens, in pastas and salads, adding real depth of flavour.

It’s not uncommon to find black pudding served with seafood, a combination I really enjoy. Often found alongside roasted plump scallops, seared monkfish cheeks or with thick fillets of cod, in this weekend’s recipe, black pudding-crumbed hake with celeriac and apple, a little goes a long way in making this dish a real winner.

For this recipe, I’ve used Sneem black pudding from South Kerry. One of the softest-textured puddings produced in Ireland. It’s the perfect blood sausage for this use. Made following a traditional recipe with lamb and or beef suet, oatmeal, onions, sheep, cow or pigs blood, and the all-important seasonings and spices that give black pudding its distinctive flavour.

Any black pudding will work for this recipe, so use your favourite or whatever pudding is produced in your locale.

If you are using a black pudding with more structure, you might find it a little difficult to crumble. If so, you can use a box grater or give the pudding a quick whizz in a food processor.

Here, I have used hake but this recipe would be fabulous too with some pollock or ling or a thick fillet of flat fish like brill, halibut or turbot.

You can bake the fish skin on or off.

Given the delicate nature of fish, it’s always easier to work with fish when the skin is attached.

A velvety celeriac and apple puree is the perfect accompaniment for this seafood supper. The sharp apple pairs so well with the nuttiness of celeriac and once cooked correctly, produces the smoothest sauce.

Black pudding crumbed hake with apple and celeriac

recipe by:Aishling Moore

It’s not uncommon to find black pudding served with seafood, a combination I really enjoy.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 20 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 4 x 130g hake fillets (pin-boned and skinned)

• 80g black pudding

• 130g panko breadcrumbs

• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

• 1.5tbsp golden rapeseed oil

• Sea salt

• Cracked black pepper

• For the celeriac and apple puree

• 80g butter

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 sprigs of thyme

• 1 celeriac (or 300g skinned diced celeriac)

• 1 Bramley apple, peeled, cored and diced

Method

1. First, make the puree.

2. Place a medium-sized heavy-based pot on moderate heat.

3. Add the butter, allow to melt, then add the minced garlic and cook until golden.

4. Add the thyme sprigs and cook for one minute.

5. Add the diced celeriac and apple, season with sea salt and top up with water to cover about 250ml.

6. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer until the apple and celeriac are completely cooked and fall apart when pressed with the back of a spoon.

7. Discard the thyme sprigs.

8. Remove from the heat and puree until smooth using a hand-held blender.

9. Season with sea salt and keep warm while preparing the hake.

10. Preheat the oven to 200C.

11. Crumble the black pudding into small pieces. Place in a small mixing bowl.

12. Add the breadcrumbs, parsley and rapeseed oil. Mix well until combined.

13. Season with sea salt and black pepper and set aside.

14. Remove the skin from thefillets using a sharp filleting knife or alternatively keep attached.

15. Grease a large baking sheet with a neutral oil.

16. Season the skin side fillets of hake with fine sea salt.

17. Place the fillets of fish skin side down on the tray and top eachfillet with an equal amount of the black pudding breadcrumb mixture.

18. Gently press each fillet tosecure the mixture on top.

19. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the breadcrumb topping is golden brown and the hake is cooked through.

20. Serve immediately with the warm celeriac and apple puree and a drizzle of rapeseed or olive oil.

Fish tales

Choose a baking tray large enough to allow enough space between fillets when baking the fish.

Use whatever herbs you have on hand for this breadcrumb mixture; chives and chervil all work wonderfully.

You can have the fish topped with breadcrumbs in the refrigerator ready to go from the night before. Just don’t season the underside of the fish ahead of time, this will cause the fish to leech water.

Remove the fish from the refrigerator 10 minutes before placing in a preheated oven to ensure even cooking.

The apple and celeriac puree will keep for three days and freezes well.

You could swap the back pudding for white pudding. This breadcrumb mixture would also be great with nduja sausage.