Tom Kitchin's Fish and Shellfish

By Tom Kitchin

Tom Kitchin's Fish & Shellfish showcases the brilliant talents of one of the UK and Scotland's favourite chefs.

Tom's passion for the best and freshest produce comes to life in these pages, as he celebrates the best fruits of the sea. Recipes take in delights such as grilled lobster, poached langoustines with aioli, crab and pea soup, braised squid risotto and Thai-style oysters, alongside roast turbot with seaweed hollandaise, whole lemon sole with a citrus and basil dressing, Cullen skink and salt cod fritters. There are also some recipes straight from Tom's Edinburgh gastropub, The Scran and Scallie, including their delectable fish pie and special battered fish chips. These are recipes that take you right to the shore-side and the spirit of fish cookery.

Beyond the recipes, there are top tips for how best to prepare this beautiful ingredient, and Tom also provides a quick and easy guide to grilling, poaching, frying, curing and roasting fish. With beautiful photography to accompany each recipe, this is guaranteed to become the go-to book for lovers of fish and shellfish.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781472937827

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Techniques

Crustaceans

Molluscs

Cephalopods

Flat Fish

White Fish

Oily Fish

Mixed Seafood

Basics

About the Author

Introduction

The joy of eating freshly caught fish or shellfish straight from the sea is an experience like no other. A big plate of fresh langoustines, oysters, crab and mussels is the kind of dish I love to share. One of my favourite ways to entertain is to gather friends and family together and place a dish like this in the middle of the table as everyone helps themselves and gets stuck in, and I find there’s always lots of laughter to go with the meal.

Some of my favourite food memories also come from fishing as a young boy. Like many families in the UK, I spent summer holidays discovering the Scottish coast with my family. I have many fond memories from this time and I especially remember the excitement of going mackerel fishing. I still get that buzz today when I go out fishing with my own children. To come across a school of mackerel and pull them up by the dozen is a truly rewarding feeling. My wife, Michaela, and I love creating foodie memories for our four young boys, and we especially treasure the journey of fishing, gutting and even barbecuing our catch, before eating it as fresh as it can possibly be. The flavour of the freshly caught fish just can’t be beaten. We all enjoy it so much, we’ve even started taking the boys crab fishing, too. Our young ones just love catching the little green crabs you find in the rockpools and along the shore line, which makes delicious Green Crab Bisque.

People who follow my cooking know that as much as simple pleasures give me a lot of joy, I’m not scared to push the boundaries and I’m always seeking out lesser-known produce or flavour combinations. In this book, I want to help people break the shackles of ‘I only like salmon’ or ‘I don’t like fish with bones in it’, and experiment with their own cooking, to discover new species, new dishes and new flavours.

As a chef, I am in a privileged position at the restaurant and people often ask me to cook for them off menu. We also welcome more and more ‘pescatarian’ diners, who eat only fish and vegetables, but still want to enjoy the whole experience of our Tasting menu at The Kitchin. It’s all about trust, I guess, but I absolutely love guiding and encouraging guests to try food they have never eaten before, taking them on a real journey. Fish and shellfish most definitely fall into this category, and I find it such a joy to experiment with these incredible ingredients every day.

At The Kitchin and The Scran & Scallie, we are blessed with outstanding fish and shellfish suppliers. The incredible lengths that many of our fishermen and fisherwomen go to in order to catch the amazing produce is something that I, as a chef, am eternally grateful for and respectful of. As with many things in life, it’s so important to know that we are fishing our seas in a sustainable and responsible manner, making sure the seas remain well stocked with fish for generations to come.

I often hear people say that they find it challenging to source particular fish or shellfish. Many of our supplies are in demand across the world and I know it can be frustrating, but things are certainly moving in the right direction. My best advice when it comes to sourcing is to visit your local fishmonger. I can’t stress enough how important it is to create and build a relationship with your local fishmonger. Without customer support they won’t survive and that would certainly mean we would have less access to many different species of fresh fish and shellfish.

The fishmonger plays a vital role in our society and often holds the key to accessing beautiful, fresh and local produce. I always find they are very willing to assist with choosing different species, pre-ordering if you have something specific in mind and also offering advice on preparations like filleting and gutting. I also find local fishmongers can often be of great assistance in inspiring their customers and helping to push the boundaries in their home cooking.

Many times, I have come across fishmongers who are great characters and very knowledgeable about the world of fish and shellfish. Get to know them, take on their recommendations and don’t be shy in asking them to order in produce that is not widely available.

I appreciate that for many home cooks, the idea of working with fish and shellfish can seem like a messy job. If that’s the case for you, I recommend you ask your fishmonger to gut and prepare the fish from whole, as this not only saves you time, but can also make the cooking process more enjoyable. If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, however, I would definitely encourage you to give the gutting and filleting a go. It’s a very rewarding job and it gives you that pleasure of seeing the process through from start to finish. Not only that, but you will really get to learn about the produce and understand the different parts and different flavours.

When buying your fish, there are a few important things to look for, but remember the fresher the better. Be aware of the aroma – freshwater fish shouldn’t smell overly ‘fishy’, and if it does then it’s probably past its best; saltwater fish should smell briny. Whole fish should have shiny skin and scales with bright, shiny eyes; if the eyes are dulled then do not buy it. Whole fish should also have firm, taut flesh that springs back when pressed, and gills should be red, not brown.

When it comes to shellfish, all shellfish should be closed, or should close when gently tapped on a surface, and should be odourless. Lobsters, prawns and crabs should have a good colour and feel heavy for their size. Live crabs and lobsters should have rubber bands around their claws to prevent injury.

For me, fish or shellfish makes the perfect quick-and-easy mid-week meal, but I also nowadays find myself enjoying fish when my wife and I are entertaining, as it is so straightforward to bring together a meal that looks impressive, tastes delicious and is ideal for sharing.

I hope this book inspires some everyday dishes, as well as those more celebratory meals that will push you out of your comfort zone to try something new and appreciate how incredibly rewarding it can be. In this recipe collection, I have tried not only to include different variations of extracting flavours from fish and shellfish, but also to showcase different preparation and cooking methods, from roasting to steaming and poaching. Catching, preparing and cooking fish and shellfish has brought me a lot of enjoyment over the years, and I am incredibly passionate about sharing my love for this beautiful produce in the hope that you, too, can continue to enjoy new flavours and experiences.

My wish for this book is to encourage people who are nervous about preparing fish from scratch or experimenting with different species, or indeed those who have not always had great experiences with eating seafood, to try something new. The key to delicious fish and shellfish is always the freshness of the produce. By sharing some of my failsafe techniques and methods for preparing and cooking fish and shellfish, I hope that this book will be a guide and inspiration to all.

Happy Cooking!

Tom Kitchin

Edinburgh, 2018

Techniques

When cooking fish and shellfish, it’s important to remember how delicate some of these products are, and that they need to be treated with respect. When seafood is at its best, it’s often had as little done with it as possible, which allows the natural flavours to shine through. As humans, we often stick to what we know, but I think it’s good to try different cooking methods, as each cooking method influences the flavour of the fish. Pan-frying or steaming a halibut fillet, for example, provides two completely different flavours. Both are excellent, and more often than not I find my mood on the day will influence my preference as much as the season.

Braising

Seafood – or any ingredients that are braised for that matter – is cooked slowly with very little liquid in the oven. It’s a way of tenderising ingredients, such as in Risotto with Braised Squid, where squid can easily become tough if it isn’t properly cooked.

Deep-frying

I don’t use deep-frying often in this book, but there are some recipes, such as the Salt Cod Fritters, that just call out for the golden, crisp finish the technique gives. When you are deep-frying, however, always be that little bit more aware of what’s going on around you than you might be. This isn’t the time to have small children helping you. Use clean sunflower or other vegetable oil and never over-fill the fryer. It’s important to heat the oil to the temperature given in the recipe, so use a thermometer if your fryer doesn’t have a thermostat. Frying at the wrong temperature will give you a greasy coating or the exterior will be cooked while the seafood is still raw. And before I start deep-frying, I like to have everything ready, from the ingredient that is going into the fryer, to the utensil I will use to remove it from the oil and a tray lined with kitchen paper for draining the ingredient on.

En Papillote

Just because this technique is French, don’t make the mistake of thinking it is complicated. Not at all. The phrase simply means to cook in a tightly sealed paper parcel so no steam escapes while the parcel is in the oven, sealing in the ingredients’ natural flavour and juices, keeping everything tender and moist. It’s almost impossible to over-cook seafood with this technique, so it’s particularly suitable for delicate fillets and shellfish. Just make sure the paper parcel is well sealed.

For a stylish, prepare-ahead starter try my Brill & Ceps en Papillote, which cooks the fish in a greaseproof paper-lined foil ‘cup’. And, if you want a bit of theatre with the meal, serve the puffed-up parcel straight from the oven to enjoy the wonderful aromas when you first open it.

Grilling

Grilling can be interpreted both as using the grill in your domestic oven and as cooking over hot coals on a barbecue, and I use both techniques throughout this book. They both involve a significant amount of heat and tend to be used for quick cooking, so grilling is best for thick pieces of seafood, such as the Monkfish, Salmon & Scallop Kebabs, as well as oily fish and some shellfish. The natural oils in oily fish serve to baste the fish while it cooks.

When cooking fish or vegetables on the barbecue, make sure the rack or the ingredients are rubbed with oil so they don’t stick. The possible hazards of grilling are cooking the seafood too far from the heat source, which can dry out the flesh before it is tender, or cooking it too quickly, so the exterior chars before the interior is cooked though. I usually start cooking over the hottest coals and then slow down the cooking process by moving the ingredients to a part of the rack over cooler coals. This should give you a browned and crisp finish with tender flesh. It’s also best to avoid constantly turning the seafood over, as the pieces can easily break.

When using the domestic oven grill at home, I line the grill tray with greaseproof paper or kitchen foil and brush it lightly with olive oil before adding whatever fish I’m cooking. This works really well with white fish fillets and a selection of thinly sliced seasonal vegetables for a mid-week supper – the foil saves on the washing up!

Home Smoking

Let’s embrace a love of the smoker. Home smoking adds an extra layer of flavour to a variety of fish and shellfish, and I would be surprised if you don’t become a devotee once you try it. If you invest in a portable home-smoking box, its great versatility is that you can use it at home on your hob or a barbecue, or on the banks of the river as well, which is something I particularly enjoy doing.

A good place to buy smokers is at fishing shops or online. Look for an appropriate size for your kitchen and keep in mind how much seafood you are likely to smoke at one time. It’s also a good idea to buy one with an internal rack so you don’t put the seafood directly on the wood chips.

The wood chips that produce the smoke come from a variety of woods, each adding a distinctive flavour. I like to use oak chips, but there are lots to choose from. Soak the wood chips before using, as specified in the recipe. You then fill the bottom of the smoker with the drained chips, position the rack on top and then close the lid. Place the smoker over direct heat until a cloud of smoke builds up inside it, at which point you can add the seafood. Always oil your fish gently before you place it on the rack, which prevents it from sticking when you’re ready to take it out.

Pan-frying

I particularly love to pan-fry sea bass and Dover sole fillets, but as a technique it’s good for just about any fish when you want crispiness on the outside, especially the skin, and you’ll see I use this technique throughout the book. Often I pan-fry pieces of fish before I finish roasting them in the oven to add colour as well as crispiness.

It’s really important to heat your pan and the oil over a medium-high heat before pan-frying any fish. If the pan is not hot enough and you add two or three portions of fish, what will happen is you won’t get crispy skin and more often than not the fish will just stick to the pan. I like to add just a thin layer of oil as there’s nothing worse than dishes that are swimming in oil. Also, if your pan isn’t large enough to hold all the fish portions in a single layer, use two pans or cook the fish in batches, because if the pan is overcrowded the fish will simply steam and, again, you won’t get the desired result.

Poaching

Poaching is like the forgotten technique, but cooking seafood in simmering flavoured liquid on the hob or in the oven is such a wonderful and healthy way of keeping it moist. It is a gentle technique, ideally suited to just about all fish and shellfish. It is a particularly useful technique for cooking whole fish, but smaller pieces work well, too.

I love to get as much flavour as I can into the poaching liquid with different vegetables, aromatics and herbs that then add such a subtle flavour to the flesh. Water is the most common poaching liquid, but other ingredients also work well, such as red wine for Monkfish Poached in Red Wine & Tagliatelle. Cullen Skink and Salt Cod Fritters are poached in milk. Use my court bouillon recipe and you’ll not go wrong when poaching just about any seafood.

When poaching fish or shellfish, bring the liquid to the boil and then turn down the heat so the liquid just simmers to infuse the flavours before adding any seafood. When the seafood is cooked through remove it from the liquid very carefully with a slotted spoon or fish slice. If you’re poaching fish to serve cold, as in the Dressed Salmon, however, it’s often best to leave the fish in the liquid as it cools.

Roasting

Roasting is a dry cooking technique particularly suited to whole and stuffed fish, but it also suits chunky portions. When I roast whole fish, such as Roasted John Dory with Boulangère Potatoes, it always cooks so much better when still on the bone, as it keeps the fish moist and flavoursome.

It’s important to use the correct roasting tin or ovenproof dish and to get as much flavour as possible into the finished dish, by adding vegetables, wine or fruit or even by stuffing the belly, as in the Spinach-stuffed Red Mullet. Once roasted fish comes out of the oven make sure you rest the fish, covered with kitchen foil, before serving.

Steaming

I love to steam fish. Like poaching (above) steaming is a technique using lots of liquid, but in this case the fish gently cooks in the steam above simmering water, rather than being immersed. Steaming always gives such a natural and clean flavour.

A lot of domestic ovens now have a steaming setting and more often than not people don’t use them. In the restaurant I use a good old-fashioned steaming pot, which has a steaming basket and lid that fits on top. If you don’t have one of those, however, improvise with an inexpensive Chinese bamboo steamer that fits snuggly over a heavy-based saucepan. You want to be able to arrange the ingredients being steamed in a single layer, so it’s best to use two steamers if yours isn’t large enough. Or you can use a heatproof bowl that doesn’t touch the water with a baking sheet as a makeshift lid. Just make sure the bottom of the steamer or bowl doesn’t touch the water.

Always fill the steamer with salted water three-quarters full and bring the water to the boil, then lower the heat so it’s not