Spearfished Butterfish

Spearfished Butterfish Recipe shared by our Kaitaki Collective member Ashleigh Barrowman.

Recipe by Georgia van Prehn - One Star Head Chef at Scotch Wine Bar, Blenheim.

This is a nice and simple recipe utilising easy to find seasonal produce, the earthiness of the silverbeet plays off really nicely against the butterfish.

Ingredients:

4 portions of butterfish, roughly 160g each.

Discards from the fish can be used to create a fish stock to reduce waste

1 bunch of silverbeet, raw.

Orange butter sauce:

The sauce will make enough for 4 servings.

Juice of 4 oranges

2 tablespoons of liquid shio koji

200g of butter, diced

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees on bake.
• Chiffonade the silverbeet leaves and fine cube the stalk, set aside.
• Oil and salt the portions of fish and place on a piece of baking paper, pop another piece of baking paper on top (this helps to prevent the fish from drying out too much in the oven) bake the fish for approximately 6 mins, a good way to check if fish is cooked is by poking it with a needle, if it slides through without resistance its cooked.
• While your fish is cooking, boil the orange juice and shio koji together in a small pot until it reduces to about 2 tablespoons, then start to add your cubes of butter 1 at time while swirling the pan to emulsify the butter into the liquid. Alternatively you can use a whisk. The sauce should end up glossy and thick.
• Pour the sauce liberally over the fish and arrange the silverbeet leaves and stem on top.
• Enjoy!