Aishling Moore: Red mullet is one of my favourite fish — here's how to cook it

Aishling Moore's Red mullet sauce verge: Picture: Chani Anderson

It’s always a joy when I see Red mullet on a fishmonger’s counter or they arrive in a fish delivery at the restaurant.

We buy them whole, often with innards intact and scales attached.

Red mullet is a small but mighty fish and a member of the goatfish family.

So much about red mullet is distinctive, its crustacean-like flavour, its beautiful blushing pink skin and firm white flesh. The scales are the largest and thickest we see of any fish that comes into the restaurant.

Once descaled and filleted, the frames and heads make the most intense of fish stocks, soups, and sauces, tasting as though there was a plethora of fish and shellfish used to produce the broth.

Red mullet is a somewhat oily fish which makes it a real treat for pan frying, watching the skin change from pink to bright orange as it crispens always makes me smile.

I have pan-seared the red mullet here, before finishing the final moments of cooking in a preheated oven, a process that works so well when you’re cooking for more than two people.

The skin of red mullet crisps up wonderfully in a pan, but if you’re wary of this style of cookery, this fish is also very well suited to baking.

Lightly oil a tray, place the fillets of the fish on top, season with fine salt and drizzle with a little extra oil and bake in a preheated 200°C oven.

This is also a delicious way of enjoying the delicate skin of this species.

To accompany the red mullet this weekend, we have the most simple of sauces to go with it: sauce vierge — a tomato salsa-like sauce that works with just about any fish in the sea.

Red Mullet with Sauce Vierge

recipe by:Aishling Moore

Red mullet is one of my favourite fish to prepare and cook.

Servings

4

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the fish

• 8x fillets of red mullet (pin boned)

• 2 tbsp rapeseed oil

• Fine sea salt

• For the sauce vierge

• 100g tomatoes

• 1 shallot

• 1 lemon juice and zest

• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley

• 2 sprigs of dill

• 2 sprigs of chervil

• Sea salt

• 2 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

Method

1. For the sauce

2. Peel and finely dice the shallot and place in a bowl.

3. Add the zest and juice of the lemon, season with sea salt and set aside while preparing thetomatoes. Quarter the tomatoes, remove the watery seeds and dice the tomato flesh into uniform cubes. Set the seeds aside foranother use.

4. Add the tomatoes to the bowl with the shallots and mix well.

5. Finely chop the flat leaf parsley, chervil and dill and add to the tomatoes.

6. Finish with sea salt flakes and golden rapeseed oil, taste to correct seasoning.

7. You may want to add a little more lemon juice at this stage.

8. Leave at room temperature while preparing the red mullet.

9. For the red mullet

10. Remove the fish from the fridge 10 minutes before you intend on cooking and check the fillets for any bones.

11. Preheat oven to 200°C.

12. Pat the fillets of fish dry with some kitchen paper to remove any excess water. Season with fine sea salt.

13. Preheat a carbon steel or non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat for two minutes. Add the oil and warm.

14. Working in batches place the red mullet in the pan, laying the fillets skin side-down and away from you, to avoid oil splatters. Do not disturb the fillet or move the pan.

15. Once the skin has turned a deeper shade of orange and has crisped up, confidently lift thefillet from the pan and place on a lightly greased tray using a fish slice.

16. Once all the fillets are seared on one side, place the tray in the oven for 2-3 minutes to finish cooking, depending on the size of the fish.

17. Serve on warm plates with the sauce vierge and some seasonal vegetables.

Fish Tales

Use firm fleshed tomatoes for the sauce vierge; over-ripe tomatoes will prove difficult to dice.

Marinating the shallots in lemon juice and salt is key to remove the harshness from this allium.

You can swap shallot for some finely sliced scallion.

Keep and serve the sauce vierge at room
temperature for the best results, refrigerating tomatoes dulls their flavour.

Swap dill and chervil for chives or substitute with extra flat leaf parsley, you can also use basil or coriander.

Good quality oil really makes the difference with sauces like these so use the best golden rapeseed or extra virgin olive oil you have in the press.

Don’t throw out the seeds of the tomatoes, freeze and use in soups or sauces.