Fish from Sanary sur Mer, roasted fennel and red wine jus recipe

Created by Raymond Blanc

Add a comment

Enlarge text

Rate this recipe

Cuisine: French
Prep Time: 30 min(s)
Cook Time: 1 hr(s) 30 min(s)
Serves 4

Fish and fennel is a classic combination. You can substitute a good-quality firm-fleshed local fish.

Level of difficulty: Medium

Ingredients

For the fennel flames
900g fennel flames (about 4), cut through root
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bay leaf
1 thyme sprig
½ piece orange zest
2 cardamom pods
Pinch fennel seeds
6g salt
Pinch pepper
1L water
2 tbsp olive oil

For the purée
10g refined olive oil
400g fennel, trimmed, green parts removed, cut into 2cm dice
4g salt
400ml reserved fennel flames cooking liquid
5ml lemon juice
50ml olive oil

For the red wine sauce
30g unsalted butter
120g reserved fish bones, chopped into 3cm pieces
2 small French shallots, finely sliced
100g mushrooms, finely sliced
250ml red wine, boiled, reduced by half
350ml brown chicken stock, boiled, reduced by half
¼ star anise
½g liquorice root, chopped
½ garlic clove
1 tsp arrowroot, dissolved in 1 tbsp water

For the chickpeas
100g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight (200g soaked weight)
2g cumin seeds, toasted, powdered
4 pinches salt
5g strip lemon peel
50ml extra virgin olive oil
400ml cold water
40g tomatoes, seeded, cut into 1cm dice
80g broad beans, blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes, refreshed in iced water, peeledFresh almonds, shelled

For the sea bream
Olive oil, for cooking
4 sea bream fillets (480g total), pin-boned, scaled, skin scored
4 pinches sea salt
2 pinches freshly ground black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon

View conversion table

Preparation

To make fennel flames, place all ingredients, except olive oil, in a 22cm saucepan on high heat. Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover surface with a circle of greaseproof paper. Cook for 50 minutes, until fennel is tender. Cool in cooking liquid, then use a slotted spoon to transfer fennel to a perforated tray. Pat dry. Reserve cooking liquid.

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan on high. Cook fennel flames for 2–3 minutes on one side, until golden. Season and cool in pan until needed.

To make fennel purée, heat refined olive oil in a 22cm sauté pan on medium. Add fennel and salt, cover with a lid and cook for 5 minutes. Add reserved cooking liquid and gently simmer for 30–40 minutes, until tender. Strain fennel, reserving cooking liquid. Transfer fennel to a blender and add lemon juice and olive oil. Blend until smooth, then season to taste. Set aside.

To make red wine sauce, heat butter in a large non-stick frying pan on medium. Cook fish bones for 2 minutes, until lightly golden. Add shallot and mushroom and cook for 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil, reduce heat to low and gently simmer for 10 minutes. Skim surface. Stir in diluted arrowroot and simmer for a further 1 minute, until thickened. Season to taste. Strain through a fine sieve and set aside.

To cook chickpeas, place all ingredients, except tomato, broad beans and almonds, in a small saucepan on high heat. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, only one bubble breaking surface each minute, for 1½ hours. Drain in a colander. Add remaining ingredients and return to low heat for 1 minute, to warm through. Season to taste. Cover to keep warm.

To cook sea bream, season with salt and pepper on flesh side only. Heat olive oil in a 26cm frying pan on high. Cook fish, skin sides down, for 20 seconds. Reduce heat to medium and cook for a further 7–8 minutes, until skin is golden and crisp. Turn over fish and remove from heat. Add lemon juice to pan, and spoon over fish. Transfer to a warm plate.

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Reheat fennel flames for 4 minutes. Reheat garnishes and sauce in saucepans on low heat. Spoon 2 tablespoons purée in centres of serving plates and top with fennel flames. Top with sea bream, then spoon over chickpeas. Drizzle with red wine sauce.

SBS cook’s notes
This recipe has been reproduced with minor SBS recipe style changes. | Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20ml; 1 cup equals 250ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55–60g, unless specified.

If you enjoyed this Fish from Sanary sur Mer, roasted fennel and red wine jus recipe then browse more French recipes, seafood recipes, the very hungry frenchman recipes, entertaining recipes, slow cooking recipes and our most popular hainanese chicken rice recipe.

French Restaurants

Displaying 10 of 470 French Restaurants.

	Restaurant	Book Online	Suburb
1.	Perrins Restaurant		Glen Iris
2.	Morning Star Estate		Mt Eliza
3.	Breizoz French Creperies		Williamstown
4.	LA Chaumiere		Darwin
5.	Le Provencal		South Hobart
6.	Lebrina		New Town
7.	Arc of Iris		Margaret River
8.	The Loose Box		Mundaring
9.	Petaluma's Bridgewater Mill		Bridgewater
10.	Penfolds Magill Estate Restaurant		Magill

View all French restaurants | Start a new search

Comment on this recipe

PLEASE NOTE: All submitted comments become the property of SBS. We reserve the right to edit and/or amend submitted comments. HTML tags other than paragraph, line break, bold or italics will be removed from your comment.