Valentines day contest results

Starter 

My starter and why I chose these flavours. 

Sesame crusted john dory,  with zesty red pepper and lemon sauce and parsnip puree. 

John Dory is one of my most favourite of fish, its a really ugly looking flat fish and a little difficult to prep so get your fish monger to do it for you. For the sake of this starter I’ve made a very small piece but you can use a whole fillet.

I like to put a little crunch into my dishes and coating a fish keeps all the moisture inside the fish keeping it at its most delicious. 

Step 1 

Breading fish, or in this case sesameying it! 

Coating anything is a 3 step process, first you coat it in flour then you coat it in an eggy/milky mixture then finally whatever your coating it in. Doing it like this allows for the best stickability of the coat.

To coat the fish in sesame seeds I combined them with some rice flour and used the above 3 step process. The flour in one bowl, the milky egg in the next and the combined rice flour and sesame in the last. 

It really depends how much fish you are making as to how much of each you will need. 

To cook the fish you shallow fry it on a medium heat for a few minutes on each side until golden brown, then finish in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Step 2 

The Zesty red pepper sauce to compliment the fish flavour and bring colour to the dish. 

 you will need 

1 red pepper 

Splash of white wine vinegar

1 lemon 

1/2 table spoon of sour cream 

Salt/pepper

You will need to cut the red pepper in half, sprinkle some vinegar over it cover it in tin foil then roast it in the oven on a temperature of 180 for about 45 minutes. 

When you take it out of the oven it will me soft, and you should be able to easily take the skin off the flesh. I then put it in a mini hand held food processor with half a lemon and half a table spoon of sour cream and blend until it super smooth! 

Step 3

you will need

Parsnip

Butter 

Salt/pepper 

parsnip puree because its delicious and a little lighter than mashed potato but somehow sweeter. 

Cook the parsnip in boiling water until its soft, add with butter to a food processor and process. 

Normally I would have also added a load of green beans to this dish but as it was supposed to be just a starter I didn’t