Keep Your Sole Up
Ingredients
Lemon sole: 3 large fillets
Onion: 1 small diced
Zucchini: 1 large diced
Crème fraîche: 1 table spoon
Wasabi paste: 1 table spoon
Salt: to taste
Black pepper: to taste
Crab meat: 400 g
Egg white mayonnaise: 3 table spoon
Lemon juice: 1
Tabasco: 15 drops
Chives: 2 table spoon
Salt: to taste
Egg whites: 3
Dijon mustard: 1 tea spoon
Lemon juice: Half
Vegetable oil: 200 ml
Baby courgette: 2
Fish stock: 200 ml
White wine: 100 ml
Shallots: 2
Celery: 1
Butter: 200 g small dice
Passion fruit: 3
Lemon juice: 1 and half
Chef Nicolas Fagundes Galindo shares his simple summertime recipe for lemon sole, passion fruit beurre blanc, and baby courgettes stuffed with Lambay crab, great for having fun with family and friends.
The dish uses a combination of local and exotic ingredients, which connect the Brazilian-born chef with his childhood memories, as well as his present Irish influences as a chef at Chapter One in Dublin.
The beurre blanc finished with passion fruit adds the right sourness and acidity to the dish, as well as taking Fagundes back to his Brazilian roots and his mother’s cooking. "My mom does the best passion fruit mousse in the world and we always have that in special occasions, so I knew one day I would be using passion fruit in some savoury dish,” he says.
Fagundes also showcases the best seasonal produce found locally to him in Ireland, like the Lambay crab, which echoes the philosophy of local sourcing in the kitchen at Chapter One. And finally, he uses courgettes "mostly because I really like courgettes and I think they are a really versatile vegetable, and Ireland produces a really good courgette”.
Follow all the steps below to enjoy this simple summer fish dish...
Dice your courgettes and onion into small pieces and cook in a hot medium-size pot with cooking oil on a high heat for approximately two and a half minutes, then cover with a lid and let steam for a further 20 seconds.
Add your crème fraiche and wasabi powder.
Then blitz in a mixer or food processor until you get a creamy and smooth texture.
In a bowl, add your egg whites, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
Mix with a whisk. After that, add your oil and keep whisking at all times until you get a nice and light texture mayonnaise.
Pick through your crab using a pair of gloves to find any remaining crab shell.
Put the crab in a bowl, add all your ingredients, and gently mix with a table spoon.
Taste for salt and lemon (do as you please, I personally like it with a good balance between lemon and salt.)
Simply wash your baby courgette and place inside a sieve on top of a pot with boiling water, cover with a lid and let steam for 5 minutes.
In a medium pot on a moderate heat, sweat your onions and celery until they are lightly cooked.
Then add your wine and reduce for approximately 3 minutes on a low heat until nearly a caramel.
Add your fish stock and reduce that down, still on a low heat, by three thirds. Pass the liquid through a sieve and keep reducing on a low heat until you get a caramel consistency.
Off the heat and stirring with a whisk at all times, add your small dice of cold butter slowly, and keep whisking until all the butter is incorporated into the beurre blanc sauce.
Finish with passion fruit, lemon juice and salt.
Put a tablespoon of cooking oil in a hot pan and cook your sole for 1 minute or until its golden and releases from the pan.
Add a cube of butter, turn the fish and cook for another second off the heat. Add lemon juice and salt to taste.
To plate the dish, gently place the crab on top of the courgette on a separate plate and let it sit there.
On another plate, spread 2 tablespoons of the courgette cream, lay the stuffed baby courgette on top. With a knife, cut approximately 15 thin discs of courgette, and one-by-one lay down on top of the crab.
On the opposite side of the plate you can place your lemon sole and your sauce in the middle
That's it, keep your sole up!
The final dish.