Aishling Moore: Try my crushed chickpea recipe for the comfort of mash with minimal work

John Dory with crushed chickpeas. Picture: Chani Anderson

There is no great mystery or secret to producing restaurant calibre food. Leaving all the magic of the front-of-house aside, when it comes to the food on the plate, its a simple recipe of hard graft, teamwork, and quality ingredients.

And when it comes to raw ingredients, here in Ireland, we chefs are absolutely spoilt for choice. Our farmers, growers, fishers, brewers, cheese makers, and artisans are producing some of the finest ingredients in the world.

Professional cookery is all about having a confident palate, knowing when to add that little extra pinch of salt, squeeze of lemon, or knob (or two) of butter.

That balance of salt, fat, and acid is the cornerstone of making simple food delicious.

One chef that became particularly well known for confident additions of butter was Joel Robuchon. He held 31 Michelin stars throughout the course of his career with restaurants all over the world, but the dish he became most well-known for was the humble mashed potato or puree de pomme.

Made with just four ingredients — spuds, first cooked in their skins, peeled whilst still hot, then pressed through a vegetable mill and finished with lots of butter, milk, and salt. (The potato-to-butter ratio being a very assured 50:50.)

When I have a hankering for a good scoop of mash but want to forgo the laborious washing, peeling, mashing and excessive use of dairy, I make this crushed chickpea recipe.

It has all the comfort of mash with a tenth of the workload.

Here it is served with beautiful pan-fried fillets of John Dory, but this dish would work with just about any fish and a simple side of purple sprouting broccoli dressed with a handy and tasty little sauce that works on just about any brassica.

John Dory with crushed chickpeas and sprouting broccoli

recipe by:Aishling Moore

This dish would work with just about any fish

Servings

4

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 4 x 120g fillets of John Dory

• 2 tbsp rapeseed oil

• Fine sea salt

• For the chickpeas

• 4 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 650g cooked and drained chickpeas

• Sea salt

• 1 lemon juiced

• For the broccoli

• 250g sprouting broccoli

• 1 red chilli, diced and seeds removed

• 1 lemon zested

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 1 tbsp sherry vinegar

• 2 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

Method

1. Remove the John Dory from the fridge 15 minutes before you intend on cooking it.

2. For the sprouting broccoli, place the diced red chilli, minced garlic, lemon zest, sherry vinegar and rapeseed oil in a food processor and blend on high speed until pureed.

3. Set aside.

4. Prepare the chickpeas next, placing them in a medium-sized heavy-based pot on moderate heat.

5. Warm the rapeseed oil and add the minced garlic. Cook until golden, stirring all the time to prevent catching. Add the chickpeas and season generously with sea salt and mix to coat well in the garlic-scented oil.

6. Once warm, use a potato masher to coarsely crush roughly half of the chickpeas.

7. Taste to correct the seasoning and finish with the juice of one lemon.

8. Keep warm whilst cooking the fish.

9. Pat dry any excess moisture from the fish and season with fine sea salt.

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

11. Add the rapeseed oil before placing the fish in the pan, laying the fillet skin side down and away from you.

12. John Dory curls when heat is applied, so press down on the fish fillets using a fish slice or spatula for the first 30 seconds of cooking; after this time the fish will relax.

13. Remove the fish slice and allow the crust of caramelisation to develop evenly, approximately3-4 minutes until the fish is cooked 80 percent of the way.

14. Using a fish slice confidently flip the fish over and cook on the other side for 1 minute.

15. Meanwhile, steam the broccoli for 2-3 minutes until just cooked. Drain, season and toss in the chilli dressing.

16. Serve immediately with the cooked fish and warm chickpeas.

Some tips

Carbon steel frying pans are my preference for cooking fish. They are excellent conductors of heat and require very little upkeep.

Preheating your frying pan is the most crucial step in pan-frying a piece of fish. The goal is to achieve an even temperature across the full surface area of the pan. Cold pockets will cause your fish to stick.

No matter what piece of fish you are cooking, when removing from a pan always lift from the tail end of the fish. It causes less damage to the skin.

Make sure you’re using a pan that’s large enough for the number of portions you’re cooking. Avoid overcrowding the pan; each addition to a cooking surface reduces the temperature of the pan.