There are certain foods I hate eating. When I was a kid, I didn’t like onions, and especially spinach. I would literally barf whenever my mom made me eat spinach.
With time I’ve gotten rid of a lot of these dislikes, but a few still remain. Lili has been trying to convince me to eat liver for a long time, but I just can’t get over it. I don’t enjoy foie gras either.
One of my challenges is to teach myself to eat my dislikes, one of which is peppers. I don’t like their bitter taste, especially when they show up raw in a salad. But, I recently found a way around my dislike: fire-roasted peppers. Done this way, the bitter goes away and the sweet flavour remains. I thought of this dish today at the grocery store with inspiration from a video by Gordon Ramsay, and I really liked the way it came out.
Sauce:
Take one orange pepper and put it directly on the flame until the skin chars. Do the same to one medium onion, two tomatoes and two cloves of garlic. After charring the pepper, put it inside a plastic bag — the steam will help peel it.
Put everything in a blender with a small piece of chipotle pepper. Strain the sauce onto a hot pan with a little bit of oil and “fry” it, reduce it and season it. Set aside.
Fish:
Score the skin of the fish. I used Sea Bream, but another rich fish will do the trick. Put the fish skin-side down on a pan and fry it until crisp. Flip it a give it a few seconds on the other side. Plate the fish on the sauce and garnish with cilantro.
The Gordon Ramsay video:
So you checked off pepper and added fois gras… hum, is the list getting shorter or longer? =P
The dish look very delicious and clean. I like the Ramsay’ idea of use star anise. I can imagine the licorice flavor will blend well with the sweetness of the pepper. So you will make this dish in September? ^_^
Foie gras is liver — I count it as part of that dislike
Of course I’ll make it