Seafood Made Simple: Brill with baked pumpkin, kale and caper salsa

Brill roast squash and kale by Aishling Moore: Picture Chani Anderson

It's pumpkin season, and these autumnal treasures are not just for Halloween carving!

This year at Goldie, we’ve been using lots of Uchi Kuri, a Japanese variety of winter squash that Alex at Singing Frog Gardens is growing in West Cork.

It’s such a versatile vegetable – beautiful sliced thinly, light-battered and fried, roasted to intensify its sweetness and puréed, or it might end up in a dessert once we get through the incredible glut of apples we have encountered this summer.

Bright orange verging on red in colour, each is teardrop-shaped, with a starchy texture and nutty and sweet tasting flesh.

This vegetable can take on a whole host of flavours, whilst still tasting deeply of pumpkin.

Perfect this time of year for simple soups with a little blue cheese crumbled over the top, thick-cut wedges roasted up for salads, or the glorious golden pulp can be crushed and flavoured with herbs and spices like in this weekend’s recipe - which makes it a real winner of a side-dish to accompany roasted meats or fish this time of the year.

You’ll find lots of different pumpkin varieties available right now. Crown Prince and Hokkaido being two of my other favourites.

I’ve used brill for this weekend’s recipe as it’s a fish I find it impossible not to buy when available. The mineral flavour of this flat fish works so well with the sweet deeply roasted pumpkin.

As always, you can use any fresh fish for this recipe – John Dory, turbot, plaice and megrim would all be wonderful substitutions.

A quick kale and caper salsa finishes this dish and makes the most of the most bountiful brassica. I’ve used ragged Jack kale here but you could use any variety, curly kale being the most widely available.

Brill with baked pumpkin and kale and caper salsa

recipe by:Aishling Moore

I’ve used brill for this weekend’s recipe as it’s a fish I find it impossible not to buy when available. The mineral flavour of this flat fish works so well with the sweet deeply roasted pumpkin.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 50 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 10 mins

Course

 Side

Ingredients

• For the baked pumpkin

• 1 x medium squash or pumpkin

• 3 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

• 2 cloves garlic minced

• 1 small bunch of sage, chopped

• ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

• 1 pinch of white pepper

• Sea salt to season

• 2 tbs butter

• For the brill

• 4 large or 8 small fillets of brill (skin removed)

• 1 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

• Pinch of fine sea salt

• For the salsa

• 1 large handful of kale (washed, with stalks removed)

• 1 tbsp capers, drained

• 1 lemon, zest and juice

• 1 tsp sherry vinegar

• 3 tbsp golden rapeseed oil

Method

1. Finely chop the kale and capers and place in a small bowl.

2. Add the lemon juice and zest, sherry vinegar and rapeseed oil.

3. Season to taste and keep at room temperature until serving.

4. Preheat oven to 180°Celsius.

5. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds.

6. Coat with one tablespoon of rapeseed oil and season generously.

7. Place the pumpkin skin side up and roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the flesh is soft.

8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for five minutes before using a spoon to remove the flesh from the skin. Set aside.

9. Heat a medium pot on medium-high heat and cook the minced garlic in the reamining rapeseed oil until golden brown.

10. Add the squash, breaking it up as you stir with a wooden spoon.

11. Add the sage, nutmeg and season to taste with sea salt and white pepper.

12. Finish with the butter and keep warm.

13. Once the squash is ready to serve, turn the oven up to 200°C.

14. Grease a large roasting tray with rapeseed oil and place the fillets of brill on top, season with fine sea salt and bake in the oven for 4-6 minutes until cooked through.

15. Serve with the baked squash and caper and kale salsa.

Fish tales

• When tackling the preparation of any squash or pumpkin, make sure your chopping board is stable and your knife is super sharp.
• This method for roasting would also work with butternut squash, which you’d find in most supermarkets.
• Make sure to have everything else ready before you begin cooking the fish, which should always be the very last thing to be cooked.
• This squash side reheats really well and is also great folded into pasta dishes or risotto.
• I prefer removing the skin of brill before cooking, but you can cook with skin on and easily peel off once cooked.
• Swap the chopped kale for parsley if you’d rather a herb-forward salsa.