Make Rosie Birkett's blackberry-cured cod, fennel and candy beet remoulade
Pickled blackberries add a tarty edge to the liquoricey fennel and sweet beets in this French-inspired seasonal salad and flakey pan-fried cod recipe
Serves 2
Preparation time 25 mins
Cooking time 10 mins
Ingredients
For the cure
- 150g Driscoll's Sweet Blackberries
- Zest of one lemon
- 4 juniper berries, lightly crushed
- 25ml gin
- 2 tbsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 2 sparklingly fresh loin fillets of cod, hake or 120g each
- Knob of butter
- Sprig of thyme
- Garlic clove, lightly crushed
For the remoulade
- 80ml white wine vinegar
- 100g Driscoll's Sweet Blackberries
- Pinch of salt
- Bay leaf
- 1 candy striped beetroot, peeled and sliced very thinly (preferably with a mandolin)
- 1 granny smith or cox apple, peeled, cored and julienned
- ½ bulb of fennel, sliced very finely (preferably with a mandolin)
- ½ red onion, very finely sliced
- 2 tbsp soft herbs such as dill and chervil, leaves picked and roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp capers
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp Dijon
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds
Method
- First cure your fish. Combine all the ingredients for the cure in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until you have a purple paste. Place the fish into a large bowl or baking tin and cover all over with the cure. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably 4.
- While that's curing, you're going to lightly pickle the blackberries. Bring the vinegar to the boil with the salt and bay in a non-reactive pan. Add the blackberries and set aside
- When the fish has cured, rinse it gently under a softly running tap and dry with kitchen roll. Leave on the kitchen roll to dry while you make the remoulade.
- To do this, combine the sliced ingredients in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, olive oil together along with 1 tbsp of the blackberry vinegar (from pickling the blackberries), and use it to dress the remoulade. Add the capers, pumpkin seeds and soft herbs and combine until everything is lightly and evenly coated.
- Drain and add the blackberries, reserving the blackberry-infused vinegar for other occasions (lovely dressing for salad mixed with olive oil).
- Heat a large, heavy-bottomed non-stick frying pan or cast iron skillet over a medium-to-high heat with 1 tbsp. of olive oil and knob of butter, garlic and thyme. Place the fish in the pan and cook, without moving it (you want it to create a self-sealing crust) for three or so minutes, baste with the melted butter. When it comes away from the pan naturally, flip it over and finish for a couple more minutes, continuing to baste it.
- Once just cooked through, divide the fish between plates with the remoulade. I like to season the fish with a little more of the vinegar (as you would lemon juice). Garnish with more fresh herbs.
Recipe by Rosie Birkett in collaboration with Driscoll’s Sweet Blackberries. For more tips on how to use more British blackberries, check out this video.
