- Dish Type: Main
- Serves: 6-8
- Preparation time: mins
- Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Difficulty: Difficult
Ingredients:
- 1.5-2.5 kg (or larger) whole turbot/brill gutted, trimmed and cleaned
- 4-6 medium leeks whole, green ends trimmed
- 6 fresh oysters
- 300g softened unsalted butter
- 100g wild garlic leaves
- sea salt for seasoning
- black pepper for seasoning
Oyster and Wild garlic butter
Blanch the wild garlic leaves in boiling water for 1-2 minutes then chill in ice cold water and roughly chop. Shuck one oyster and retain the meat and liquid from the shell. Place the butter, garlic leaves, oyster (meat and retained liquid) into a food processor and blend together until smooth and evenly chopped and distributed. Season to taste with sea salt. Place this mixture onto a sheet of cling film roll this up into a cylinder shape holding both ends of the cling film tighten this until you have an even cylinder with no air pockets. Set this up in the fridge.
Charred leeks
This is simplicity itself, just place the leeks into the hot embers for 4-5 min each side until the outside is fully charred and they appear to have started to soften. Wrap them in foil and place on the edge of the fire to steam and soften through fully and fully develop the smokey flavour notes. To serve remove from the foil and pull off the charred outer layers revealing the clean softened centre of the leeks inside, cut off the very ends and serve.
Turbot
The fish will be already prepared however, dry the skin with kitchen roll and place in the lightly oiled fish grilling cage seasoning with salt. Place the turbot in the cage onto the grill grate over the hot embers of the fire for 5 minutes per side then check the internal temperature. Continue to cook and turn every 3-5 minutes until you have an internal temperature of 65°c plus in the thickest part of the fish and the skin has gone charred and crispy. This cook took 25-30 minutes over the heat being produced by the fire I had, each fish and fire will vary this cooking time however, the method remains the same. The fish will be better for a slower cook using radiant heat allowing the collagen in the fish to soften making it juicy and tender, a great way to cook a whole fish.
To serve remove the fish from the turbot cage using a sharp knife to release any skin which may have stuck placing initially onto a board to take the fish off the bone. First take away the edge bones with a sharp knife pushing down and away from the fish on both edges. Then cut down the backbone removing the fillet as whole as possible from the main bones on either side. This can be done either to serve or at the table. Place discs of the oyster and wild garlic butter on the fish allowing it to melt.