Roast turbot with tartare butter
Turbot is the flat fish chefs reach for when the plate has to matter, with dense pearly flakes and a gelatine-rich frame that keeps everything moist. Roasting a tranche on the bone protects the flesh and gives you a built-in doneness cue, the moment it lifts cleanly from the spine. Ask the counter and we cut tranches to weight from a whole fish free.
This is our counter version of the turbot and tartare pairing that Nathan Outlaw, the Cornish chef whose fish restaurant held two Michelin stars, published at Great British Chefs. He serves his turbot with a chunky tartare sauce. We warm the same ideas through butter instead so it becomes a pan sauce.
Ingredients
- 2 turbot tranches on the bone, about 300g each (ask the counter to cut them from a whole fish, free)
- 75g butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small shallot, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp capers, rinsed and roughly chopped
- 2 small gherkins, finely diced
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley, plus a little chervil or dill if you have it
- juice of half a lemon
- sea salt and black pepper
Method
- Heat the oven to 200C fan 180C, gas 6. Pat the tranches very dry and season both sides.
- Heat the oil in an ovenproof pan until it shimmers. Lay the tranches in dark skin down and colour for 2 minutes without moving them.
- Turn the tranches, add a third of the butter and spoon it over once it foams.
- Move the pan to the oven and roast for 12 to 15 minutes depending on thickness. The fish is done when the flesh at the bone turns from glassy to pearly and lifts cleanly when you probe it with a knife tip.
- Rest the fish on warm plates. Return the pan to a low heat, add the rest of the butter and the shallot and cook for 1 minute until it smells nutty.
- Stir in the capers, gherkins and parsley, then the lemon juice. It will crackle and come together into a loose warm tartare.
- Season the butter, taste for sharpness and spoon it generously over the fish.
Watch Nathan Outlaw at work:
To serve: Plate the tranche bone in, sauce over the top and nothing else fighting it. Steamed potatoes and a leaf salad on the side. To drink, a white Burgundy or a dry English white.
Shop this recipe: turbot and the turbot hub. Cut to order at the counter, filleting free.
Photo: Xemenendura, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
