Aishling Moore: How to make breadcrumbed plaice with parsley sauce

Herb-crumbed plaice in parsley sauce. Picture: Chani Anderson

This weekend’s herb breadcrumbed plaice with parsley sauce is a dish of pure comfort. 

The breadcrumb topping works with just about any fish you can get your hands on, so do rely on your fishmonger to recommend what’s freshest.

The base for the parsley sauce is a bechamel recipe finished at the very last moments with lots of chopped parsley and lemon juice, a brilliant accompaniment to seafood.

Bechamel sauce is a white sauce made from milk, thickened with a roux and seasoned with gratings of nutmeg.

The milk is usually infused with an onion clouté, which is a peeled onion with a bay leaf and studded with cloves.

A roux, by definition, is a paste made of equal quantities of fat and flour.

There are four stages in the cookery of a roux, white, blonde, brown and dark brown which all lend themselves to different applications, the most common being white and blonde. 

For this parsley sauce you’ll be cooking the roux to the white stage, meaning without colour and cooking just until a paste is formed before adding the infused milk.

Once you’ve learned the very simple knack of making a bechamel sauce you’ll unlock a whole host of sauces to be added to your repertoire — a mornay sauce to cover a cauliflower and cheese or a flavoursome white sauce for lasagne. 

I’ll add a mature cheddar to my mornay and some parmesan to the sauce for lasagne.

I often serve this parsley sauce with my all-time favourite non-seafood meal – bacon and cabbage, swapping 50% of the milk for the stock produced from cooking the bacon.

A sauce made with stock thickened by a roux is a velouté and follows the exact same quantities and cooking principles, so feel free to experiment with what you have at home.

Breadcrumbed plaice with parsley sauce

recipe by:Aishling Moore

This herb breadcrumbed plaice with parsley sauce is a dish of pure comfort.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 30 mins

Cooking Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 40 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the parsley sauce:

• 700ml milk

• 1 bay leaf

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1 sprig of thyme

• 35g butter

• 35g flour

• 1 pinch white pepper

• 1 bunch of parsley chopped

• Juice of half a lemon

• For the crumbed plaice:

• 4 large or 8 small fillets of plaice

• 75g panko breadcrumbs

• 1 lemon zested

• 1 tb chopped parsley

• 1.5 tb golden rapeseed oil

• Freshly cracked black pepper

• salt flakes

Method

1. First, make the sauce. In a small pot on medium low heat warm the milk with the bay leaf, garlic and thyme to infuse for 4 minutes.

2. Pass through a sieve and place the warm milk in a jug.

3. Discard the garlic, bay leaf and thyme.

4. Melt the butter over a medium heat in a separate medium-sized heavy-based before adding the flour while mixing with a wooden spoon to form a paste. Cook for two minutes.

5. Add the warmed milk, 100ml at a time, mixing with each addition to prevent lumps from forming. Once all the milk has been added reduce the heat to low and cook for a further five minutes.

6. Season with sea salt, white pepper and finish chopped parsley and lemon juice. Keep warm while preparing the fish.

7. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C/gas 6.

8. In a small bowl place the panko breadcrumbs, lemon zest, chopped parsley, freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt. Mix well.

9. Add the rapeseed oil and mix to ensure all the breadcrumbs are well coated.

10. Lightly grease a large tray with vegetable oil.

11. Season the underside of each of the plaice fillets with fine sea salt and lay skin-side up on the tray, allowing for enough space between each fillet.

12. Top each fillet with approximately 1 tablespoon of the seasoned breadcrumb mixture.

13. Gently press the topping down to coat the skin of the fish.

14. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes or until the breadcrumb crust is golden brown and the fish is cooked through.

15. Serve hot from the oven with parsley sauce.

Fish tales

• Thicker fillets of round fish like hake and cod will take a little longer to oven bake than a flat fish like plaice or brill.
• 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, chervil and thyme all work wonderfully.
• This is easy to prepare ahead. Leave the ready-to-go crumbed fish in the refrigerator overnight. Just be sure to preheat the oven!
• The most important step in making a bechamel sauce is to only add the milk when warm to avoid any lumps from forming.
• Instead of parsley, you can use soft herbs like dill, chives and chervil or use a combination of all three to flavour the sauce.
• This parsley sauce freezes very well, so it’s a great recipe for batch cooking. Freeze without parsley and lemon juice.