Pan Seared Gurnard with Roasted Capsicum

Ingredients

For the Dressing

• 3 x capsicums, red or yellow
• 8 x kalamata olives, piped and quartered
• 1 tablespoon pickled ginger, roughly chopped
• ½ cup Maison Therese Apple Cider Vinaigrette
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 stalks of spring onion
• Handful of finely chopped herbs such as parsley, coriander and mint

For the Fish

• 4 x fillets gurnard (or similar white fish, skin on, de-scaled and de-boned)
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1 x clove garlic, crushed
• Butter and sunflower oil, to cook the fish

Serves 4

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, fan forced. Place the capsicums in an oven tray and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until the skins are blistering and starting to look burnt. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Once cool enough to handle, peel the skin off and remove the core and the seeds and discard. Finely slice the peeled capsicums thinly lengthways into nice long strips and place in a small mixing bowl.
2. Combine the rest of the dressing ingredients with the capsicum and leave to marinate.
3. In a shallow bowl, combine the flour with the salt, lemon pepper, turmeric and cayenne pepper and mix well. Dry the fish fillets well with a paper towel and coat them in the flour mix.
4. Prepare a regular sized frying pan to cook the fish and bring it to medium heat over the stove. Add approximately two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of sunflower oil to the pan – the oil helps prevent the butter from burning. Add the crushed garlic and stir until fragrant. Add two pieces of fish at a time, skin side down. Keep the fish cooking skin side down for as long as possible – to get both a crispy skin and to prevent the fish from drying out. During this time, continue to spoon over the butter in the pan onto the fish fillets. Once the sides of the fish appear white (cooked) half way up the fillet, flip to finish cooking for no more than 20 – 30 seconds and remove from the pan. The fish will continue cooking from the residual heat so try not to be tempted to leave the fish in the pan for longer.
5. Plate the fish and spoon over the dressing. Pairs well with risotto, fragrant rice dishes or potatoes!