Turbot: delicious 🙂

It’s a wonderful fish, beautiful and interesting in my opinion, but especially good to eat 😀

As for all the good quality fish, my philosophy is always the same: keep it simple, less is better than more. The main ingredient is the fish and all I want to taste is that, so I’m never going to cover it too much and I’m never going to use too many ingredients, and no heavy flavors/spices/sauces.

All I have to take care is to cook it well, at the right point, to have cooked but still moist and juicy flesh.

Let’s see.

INGREDIENTS (2 people):

• 1 turbot of about 1,0-1,5 Kg
• potatoes
• 5-6 cherry/date tomatoes
• fresh rosemary
• fresh sage
• dried oregano
• capers/olives (optional)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• some olives
• extra virgin olive oil
• a drizzle of dry white wine
• salt

1. First of all clean the turbot (if your fishmonger didn’t do it), wash it well and than dry it well. Cut the fins, and make some parallel cuts (not too deep) on the skin using a sharp knife, on both sides. Take an oven pan which is exactly the size of the fish, about. Pre-heat the oven at 180 °C.
2. Now peel the potatoes and cut it in thin slices, about half centimeter thick. How many potatoes? you have to cover the bottom of the pan and also the fish, so you’ll see. Cut also the small tomatoes in half and remove the seeds.
3. Now take the pan, add extra virgin olive oil and salt on the bottom, then place the potatoes and some tomatoes. Add again a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a little salt, than place the turbot over the potatoes. Add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some salt over the fish, then cover with the remaining tomatoes, add again a little drizzle of oil and some little salt. I also added some olives, if you like it you can do it too.
4. I added also 2 cloves of garlic, some fresh rosemary and sage leaves, and a drizzle of white wine.
5. Put it in the oven at 180 °C, fan-assisted mode. The first 20 minutes cover with an aluminium foil. Then remove it and continue baking for other 15 minutes. All together it baked for about 35 minutes. Larger turbots will take some minutes more.
6. The fish is ready when the cuts on the skin get larger, and you can see the white flesh, but still moist.
7. When it’s ready remove the skin of the turbot and take the fillets.
8. Serve it and enjoy it, if you would like add some freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and serve it for example with a good white wine 🙂

(in this case I tried an unusual pairing: an Oude Geuze, from Oud Beersel brewery to be more precise 🙂 a very particular Belgian style beer, an acid beer made from spontaneous fermentation using wild yeasts, in Belgium they use to pair it with fish: it was good, but honestly I still prefer white wine with fish 🙂 ).

PS: the turbot shows its best from a size of about 2 Kg or larger, so if you can find it I suggest those ones.