Crispy Skin Snapper, Blood Orange, Fennel & Green Olives
There is something special about the combination of fish, fennel & blood orange. It's such a simple dish and everything works so well together with a little kick from green olives. Easy enough for any night.
There is something special about the combination of fish, fennel & blood orange. It's such a simple dish and everything works so well together with a little kick from green olives. Easy enough for any night of the week and just as perfect for a special occasion or long weekend lunch. Blood oranges have a short season but you can use a naval orange once the season ends.
Crispy Skin Snapper, Blood Orange, Fennel & Green Olives
Ingredients
- 2 x 150g snapper fillets, skin on or use bream as an alternative
- Flake sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 head fennel
- 3 blood oranges
- ½ cup each picked dill & mint
- ½ cup green olives, pitted, halved
- 2 tbsp chardonnay vinegar
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Gently dry the skin of the snapper well with paper towel – this is important to getting a crispy skin. Carefully pin bone using fish tweezers and set the fish a side on a plate, skin side up. If doing this a few hours in advance keep the fish uncovered, skin side up in the fridge, which will help further dry the skin out.
- Cut the fennel in half, and shave finely, 1mm thick, on a mandolin.
- Top and tail the blood orange and using a small, sharp knife, cut around the orange to remove the skin, cutting with the curve of the fruit. Slice the peeled blood orange into 5mm thick rounds.
- Roughly chop half the herbs and add to the fennel with remaining herbs and green olives. Don’t dress the salad yet.
- Preheat fry pan over a high heat.
- Season the fish with flake salt on both sides. Add the 2 tbsp of olive oil to the hot pan then carefully add the fish skin side down and keeping over the heat, press down on the fillets with a fish spatula for 15-20 seconds.
- Manage the heat, turning down to a medium/high if needed so the fish is caramelising evenly, and you will start to see the sides of the fish browning and the flesh becoming opaque (you can cover with a lid at this point which helps speed up the cooking).
- Cook the fish on the skin side most of the way, approx. 3 minutes for this size snapper, as they are a thinner fillet, then carefully flip the fish, remove the pan from the heat then after 20 seconds, remove the fish from the pan to a plate.
- Dress the fennel salad with the vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper then gently toss.
- To serve, layer the fennel salad and blood orange onto serving plates and top with the cooked snapper.
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