Bride’s Lemon Butter Barra – By Anthony Davies

When it comes to cooking seafood it’s a good idea to apply the “KISS” principle, that is “keep it simple, Silly” This family favourite from the Bride’s repetoire is a 3 ingredient simplification of the classic French Mueniere method. It works well with thick, meaty pieces of fish, like the full thickness fillet of a 60 -70cm “killer” barra. These days most of us release big mama barra, only keeping the occasional fish just over legal size.

Generously squeeze lemon juice over the fillets.

Ingredients:

1 x 250 to 350 gram piece of fish per person, around 2cm thick. Softer flesh species like barra, king salmon, jewfish or coral trout are ideal. Mackerel and even nannygai will cook up too dry with this method.

1 x tablespoon of butter (NOT margarine!) per fish piece. I am a big olive oil fan, but we need butter in this recipe for the colour and flavour.

1/2 a juicy lemon per fish piece. I am blessed with an ever-bearing Meyer lemon tree that has super juicy fruit, the pointy yellow Lisbon lemons from the supermarket have a slightly better flavour, but be careful to choose heavy, juicy ones.

Once turned, drizzle with the remaining juice and cook covered for another 5 minutes or so.

Method

Arrange the fish pieces in a bowl and squeeze over about half the lemon juice. We aren’t making a Ceviche or Nummus, the fish will only be marinating for a couple of minutes.

Melt the butter in a large non stick frying pan. Add the fish pieces, cover and cook on medium heat for about 6 minutes. The lid will stop messy spatter from the sizzling lemon juice and trap steam that will help cook the fish evenly without drying out.

After about 5 minutes, the down side of the fillet will have coloured up nicely as the butter and lemon juice caramelize. Turn, drizzle with the remaining juice and cook covered for another 5 minutes or so. Check that the thickest piece has cooked through to the centre, cook for a little longer if required. Serve with chips, salad or both, spooning over any remaining pan juices.

The fillets from this just legal silver saltie are the perfect thickness for the recipe.