2
Ingredients
4 x 200g white fish fillets, skin left on
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Method:
1. use a sharp knife and lightly score the skin on each fish fillet at 1-cm intervals.
2. rub fish with olive oil and season with salt.
3. Place the fish fillets, skin side down, in a medium–hot nonstick pan and cook without moving for 3 minutes. see hints and tips for cooking times especially if the fish is quite thick.
4. When the skin is crisp and lightly browned, turn fillets over, reduce heat to low and cook for a further 3–4 minutes. (The fish is cooked when any juices run clear; if the juices are cloudy, it is still slightly undercooked; and if the juices solidify and turn hard white, the fish is overcooked.)
HINTS AND TIPS:
* You will need—cutting board, cook’s knife, spoon measure, sauté pan and spatula.
* The time taken to cook fish depends on the thickness of the fish fillet. From the head end where most of the bones will be, fish fillets will be quite thick and on a low temperature the fish will take 7–10 minutes to cook through. From the tail end where there are no bones, the fillet is half the thickness and may only take 5 minutes to cook through.
* The protein in fish is very delicate, similar to that of egg whites. Egg whites are best cooked over a gentle heat. Fish is the same. I tend to cook the skin side over high heat to impart colour and texture to the skin, I then turn the heat down to the lowest setting and cook it gently and slowly for as long as it takes for the proteins in the fish to just set.
* Fish need only be seasoned with a light sprinkling of salt. If you are a fan of pepper, wait until it is served and then grind some fresh pepper over the top. Black specks of pepper on the soft white flesh of the fish fillet are unappealing and pepper tends to burn in a pan and become bitter. Try white pepper instead.
* To avoid excess smoke in the kitchen or on a barbecue, rub the fish with oil rather than adding the oil to the pan or hot plate. This minimal amount of oil is less likely to send a plume of smoke through the house.
* Do not be scared to slightly undercook fish. If you have ever eaten sushi or sashimi—Japanese staples using raw fish—then the notion of fish a bit underdone should set your mind at ease. Undercooked fish will not make you sick unless the fish was old before it was cooked.
