Serves 2
Ingredients
Seabass
2 140g portion wild seabass
Flour
Oil
Butter and lemon juice for cooking
Oxtail
500g oxtail
1 bottle red wine
750ml chicken stock
Zest of 1 orange
Tarte fine
4 sheet feuille de brick pastry
100g melted butter
1 spanish onion
10-15 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
100ml extra virgin rapeseed oil
Duxelle
500g portobello mushrooms
100ml red wine
Rocket oil
50g rocket
100ml vegetable oil
Turnip and marmalade purée
4 round turnips
50g bitter marmalade
100ml water
50g butter
To serve
3 medium ceps, cleaned and halved
2 baby gem lettuce, washed, halved, outer leaves removed
200ml strong chicken stock
Method
Duxelle
Blend portobello mushrooms until almost a purée, add to a pan and cook on a medium heat until all moisture has evaporated. Add 100ml of red wine and cook again until evaporated, season with salt, cool and reserve.
Oxtail
Soak oxtail for 24 hours in red wine. Drain and reserve wine, cook oxtail in a hot pan until brown. Pour over chicken stock and reserved wine, bring to the boil on a high heat then cover with a lid and braise in the oven at 140c for 3 hours. Remove oxtail from the liquor, once cooled flake all meat off the bone and reduce the cooking liquor to a thick
Sauce consistency. Keep back 2 tablespoons of the sauce to finish the dish and bind the rest with the flaked meat. Season with salt and the zest of an orange.
Onions
Finely dice the onion. Warm rapeseed oil in a hot pan, add onions and continue to cook on a high heat, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes. This will help maintain freshness. Add picked thyme leaves and cook for a further minute, remove from the heat and chill.
Rocket oil
Bring 100ml of rapeseed oil to 150c—have rocket ready in a blender jug. Pour the oil over the rocket and blend thoroughly. Season, pass and cool quickly.
Tarte fine
Spread a thin layer of the duxelle on 3 of the 4 sheets of the pastry, then brush with melted butter and arrange each one on top of each other. Brush the final sheet with melted butter and place on top. Bake in the oven at 180c for 15 minutes until golden and crisp, cool a little then portion into equal rectangles.
Turnip and marmalade purée
Peel the turnips and slice thinly on a mandolin. Bring water and butter to the boil. Add the turnip and cook until soft. Drain the turnip and blend with the marmalade until smooth. Pass and season.
Seabass
Season the seabass with salt and dust the skin side with flour. On a medium heat add a little oil to a large frying pan and fry the fish skin side down for 4-5 minutes. Flip the bass and remove from the heat. Add a little butter and baste the skin, then add a splash of lemon juice. Remove from the pan.
To serve
Heat a little oil in a frying on a medium heat and fry ceps for 1½-2 minutes on each side. Add chicken stock and reduce to glaze the ceps. In a saucepan, bring a little water and butter to the boil. Season with salt to taste and cook gem lettuce until tender, remove from the pan and blowtorch all over until charred.
Warm the purée, oxtail, onion and oxtail sauce, set aside and keep warm.
To build the tarte fine, spread 2 of the rectangles with the warmed oxtail mix and 2 with the warm onions. Then place on top of each other sandwiching the oxtail in the middle with the onion side facing up. Spread the warm purée across the plate, assemble the ceps and gem on the place and lay across the purée. Place the bass next to the tarte fine, drizzle with rocket oil and sauce as illustrated.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEAN CAZALS