TALK to any restaurateur in Ireland and they will tell you that the greatest change which has taken place in people's eating habits, in the last decade, has been their willingness to order and eat fish when they are in a restaurant. Talk to anyone at Bord Iascaigh Mhara, and they will tell you that our consumption of fish, per capita, is pathetic. A quarter of the population rarely eats fish, and more than half of us eat it only once a week.
So what is really going on here? An island nation whose population doesn't eat the good things that swim in the seas all around us? The answer, I think, is simple - we are nervous of cooking fish, because we don't really know what to do with it. We don't know how to get the best out of it. And our timidity has led to a vicious circle. For, as we eat less, the number of good fish shops in the country has declined, and it is more difficult to get spanking-fresh fish. If we get fish which is less than fresh, bring it home and cook it and it disappoints us, we are slower to buy fish in the future.
Our willingness, then, to trust restaurateurs to cook fish for us is again mystifying. For to tell the truth, many of them are rather poor fish cooks. They over-complicate matters, stuffing sole with crab meat and other daft ideas, and make sauces which are too rich.
So, let us try to get back on the true path. The recipes I have chosen below are designed to help in this way: the fish soup is what you make when your fish is not too excellent; the fish gravy is so delicious that you will never pfaff around making any other type of sauce again; and the fish cakes are simple, clever, tasty, easy.
But if there is a secret to fish cookery, then what is it? I think the secret lies with three things. Firstly, the piece of fish should be top class. If it is, then what you need is, secondly, heat and, finally, simplicity.
Let us say you have a good piece of haddock (an underrated and in my opinion absolutely gorgeous fish). This is what you do with your fillet: rinse it and dry it and season it. Heat the oven to maximum. Put a frying pan on a high heat, add oil and just as it begins to smoke, in goes the fillet, skin side up. Leave it for a minute, then turn (if you are nervous about turning it, you don't even need to do so). After another minute, remove the pan to the oven. Count two minutes, then take a look: the fillet should look as if it is exuding milk, i.e. it should be bright white, and moist. It's ready.
Get it out, get it on to the plate, drizzle some good olive oil over it, and eat it. That is all you need to do, for all the flavour is in the fish and that is what we want. But you must not be timid of high heat, or of the brevity of cooking. Fish is cooked when we raise the temperature of its innermost parts to 145F, 63C, and as the great fish expert Alan Davidson writes, this temperature is the one to aim at, and care should be taken not to exceed it".
Mediterranean Fish Soup with Pasta
The principle of this soup is that the fish flesh disintegrates into the liquid, flavouring and thickening it. It is a fantastic lunch dish.
2 tablespoons olive oil. 1 very large Spanish onion, sliced. 1 leek, sliced. 1 tin tomatoes. 3 garlic cloves. 1 bunch of fennel leaves or a small bulb of Florence fennel, sliced Zest (peel) of half an orange. About 3lb mixed fish; base your mix on fish from the cod family (cod, pollock, haddock etc), and do throw in the fish heads, bones and fins. Then ask your fishmonger for carcasses of sole, or hake or whatever to make up the mix. Two or three handfuls of fresh pasta (fettucini works well), Gruyere cheese, Garlic mayonnaise or Rouille.
Stew the leek and onion in the olive oil until translucent. Add the tomatoes and the whole garlic cloves. Then season with the bay leaf, the fennel, the orange zest, and some salt. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until the whole mass has come together into the consistency of stew. Chop the fish roughly and add to the pot. Turn up the heat and then completely cover the fish with boiling water.
Crush the fish down with a wooden spoon to extract as much flavour as possible. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30 minutes.
Sieve the fish through a fine sieve - the best is a drum sieve, pressing down with a pestle to extract as much as you possibly can from the mixture, being careful not to push through any bones. You should be left with a delicious orange-coloured broth. Season. Parboil your pasta for a couple of minutes - you can use loads of pasta and make this hearty lunch, or add a little pasta and serve it as a first course. Garnish each bowl of soup with some grated Gruyere cheese and with a spoonful of garlic mayonnaise or a rouille (good commercial bottles of both are available from delis - or better still, make your own).
Rick Stein's Fish Gravy
Rick Stein uses this sauce (he himself describes it perfectly as a sort of "fish gravy") with Roast Cod with Aioli and Butter Beans, in his magical book Taste Of Tile Sea (BBC Books). I find it works beautifully, and simply, as a sauce for whatever is the best fish I can get, roasted.
FISH STOCK
1.5kg (3lb) fish hones, including heads, 1.751 (3 pints) water. A handful or fresh white button mushrooms, sliced. 1 large onion, chopped. 1 large leek, chopped. 1 large carrot, chopped. 1 celery stick, including leafy top, sliced
Place the bones in the water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, then pass through a strainer lined with muslin. Return the stock to the pan and add the vegetables. Bring to the boil again, and simmer 45 minutes. Strain again.
(Freeze in one-pint amounts the stock you don't use for this recipe, then next time you're making the sauce, the stock will be ready made for you).
THE SAUCE
225g (8oz) chopped mixed carrot, leek, celery and onion. 50g (2oz) unsalted butter. 1 tablespoon cognac. 10g (1/4 oz) dried mushrooms. 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar. 1/2 red chilli. 2 tablespoons olive oil. 1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce (nam pla). 600ml (1 pint) fish stock. 1/2 teaspoon salt. 4 fresh basil leaves.
Sweat the vegetables in a large pan with half the butter, until soft. Add the cognac and let it boil, then add all the rest of the sauce ingredients, except the remaining butter and basil leaves. Simmer for 30 minutes, then pass through a fine sieve. Bring the sauce back to the boil and simmer until it has reduced to about 150ml (5 fl oz). To serve, bring the sauce back to the boil and whisk in the last ounce of butter, then add the basil leaves.
Anton Mosimann's Fish Cakes
In his book The Essential Mosimann (Ebury Press, £9.99) Anton Mosimann suggests you serve these fish cakes with braised chicory.
450g (1lb) white fish, smoked haddock or salmon fillet (or mixed) cut up into 1cm cubes. 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley. 1 tablespoon finely cut chives. Salt and freshly ground pepper. 1 egg, beaten. 250g (9oz) potatoes, peeled and roughly grated. 1 tablespoon olive oil. 15g (1/2 oz) butter. 1 lemon, cut into quarters.
Combine the fish, herbs and seasonings in a bowl. Add the egg and mix to bind well. Divide the mixture into eight equal portions and roll into balls.
Squeeze the potatoes lightly to get rid of excess water. Place on a plate, season well, and roll the balls lightly in the grated potato to coat. Flatten the balls slightly and shape into little cakes.
Heat the oil and butter together in a pan, and shallow-fry the fish cakes gently on both sides until crisp and golden brown in colour, about six to seven minutes.
Drain well on kitchen paper. Serve, garnished with the lemon quarters for squeezing over the fish.