Ingredients

Method

• ½ cup sunflower oil, for frying
• 60 g capers, rinsed and patted dry with kitchen paper
• 4 Woolworths whole Alaskan soles (1.6 kg), skin removed and patted dry
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 T olive oil
• 100 g unsalted butter, roughly cut into 3 cm cubes
• 1 x 6 cm ginger piece, peeled and grated
• 3 T lemon juice
• 1 nori seaweed sheet, blitzed in a spice grinder to form 1 T fine powder
• 2 t parsley finely chopped
• 1 lemon, quartered, for serving

Method

Ingredients

Pour enough sunflower oil into a small saucepan so that it rises 2 cm up the side of the pan. Place over a high heat and, when hot, carefully (the oil will spit!) add the capers and fry for 1 minute until crisp and starting to brown. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a kitchen paper-lined plate and set aside until ready to use.

Preheat the oven's grill to its highest setting. Place the fish on a large parchment-lined tray, head side down, and sprinkle with 1 t salt. Turn them over, brush with the olive oil and evenly sprinkle over another 1 t salt and a good grind of black pepper. Grill for 8–10 minutes, until cooked, then keep somewhere warm until ready to serve.

While the fish is grilling, place the butter into a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Cook for 5–6 minutes until it starts to foam, turns a light brown colour and begins to smell nutty. Remove from the heat and stir in the ginger, lemon juice, seaweed and parsley.

To serve, spoon ½ T of the butter sauce onto each plate and dot with a few capers. Place the fish on top, followed by the remaining sauce and capers, spread out along the fish. Serve at once, with a wedge of lemon.

Cook's note: “When Scully worked at Bathers’ Pavilion on Balmoral Beach in Sydney, he learnt many things about life in the kitchen. The hours were long, the head chef tough, the cooking traditional French and the learning curve steep. Getting to the restaurant each day required a long walk up a steep hill overlooking the sea, which also taught Scully that fish never tastes better than when you’re eating it while looking at the sea. For those not privy to a view of the waves we’ve blitzed up some nori seaweed instead, so that you can at least close your eyes and pretend.”

This recipe appears in NOPI: THE COOKBOOK by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully. Food photography copyright Jonathan Lovekin 2015. Reproduced with permission from Ebury Press.

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