Food Zander à la Grenoble

[Martin Zwick]

Zander (pikeperch) is very popular in Germany and Switzerland like cod or sole for you. Here we have a fish classic from the good old days when butter was heavily used and nobody thought about health. Of course the amount of butter is your choice. Also you can use any fish you like, I would say a sole would be a wonderful alternative. I saw versions with parsley, but I would not recommend it. Fair to say I am a purist. Anyway a sublime&delicious classic and worth to re-cook.

BTW, I did not drink a Riesling. Surprise, suprise………instead a wonderful Chenin blanc.


Ingredients

300g Zander filet
2 organic lemon (juice&filet)
2 tbsp capers in salt
50-80g butter


Preparation

1. First, put the capers in a bowl with water for 1-2-3h. Remove from the water and optional wash them a little bit. Also cut lemon filets from 1 lemon. Heat a little bit sunflower oil in a non-stick pan and cook the fish filet on the skin for 1-2min. Drizzle the fish with a little bit of lemon juice. Half of a lemon or less.






2.. Skip the side of the fish. Reduce the heat to low and add butter. Take care that the butter melt on very low heat. No dark or black butter please






3. Also add lemon filets and capers. Let it cook for 1-2-3min. The goal is to create an emulsion






4. Serve with cooked potatoes or fettuccine pasta or whatever you like

 

[Martin Zwick]

P.S.

 

[Thom Blach]

I wish we could get zander. In fact I wish we could get any freshwater fish apart from beastly farmed trout. It has sometimes seemed to me that the Chinese and Bengali preference for freshwater fish is well founded. A wild brown trout is as good as fish gets. Alas It's been 27 years since I ate one.
Butter is now officially healthy, I believe. Good butter certainly tastes as if it is.

 

[Martin Zwick]

I wish we could get zander. In fact I wish we could get any freshwater fish apart from beastly farmed trout. It has sometimes seemed to me that the Chinese and Bengali preference for freshwater fish is well founded. A wild brown trout is as good as fish gets. Alas It's been 27 years since I ate one.
Butter is now officially healthy, I believe. Good butter certainly tastes as if it is.

Quelle surprise, butter is healthy these days.

You can also use Rotbarsch (redfish/ocean perch), Thom.

 

[Martin Zwick]

Apropos health, interesting article this morning in the GUARDIAN

Chew slowly, keep moving and eat 30 plants a week: 12 rules for gut health

What to eat, when, how to do it properly – and what to avoid. Experts lay out the food habits that will make a real difference to your health

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sean Hardon]

I wish we could get zander. In fact I wish we could get any freshwater fish apart from beastly farmed trout. It has sometimes seemed to me that the Chinese and Bengali preference for freshwater fish is well founded. A wild brown trout is as good as fish gets. Alas It's been 27 years since I ate one.
Butter is now officially healthy, I believe. Good butter certainly tastes as if it is.

Used to catch them on the Ouse as a child in Houghton. They were considered a pest as they would eat up all the fry in the river.

 

[Andrew Stevenson]

Used to catch them on the Ouse as a child in Houghton. They were considered a pest as they would eat up all the fry in the river.

Next year you could be a millionaire, Sean.

 

[Steven Pritchard]

I wish we could get zander. In fact I wish we could get any freshwater fish apart from beastly farmed trout. It has sometimes seemed to me that the Chinese and Bengali preference for freshwater fish is well founded. A wild brown trout is as good as fish gets. Alas It's been 27 years since I ate one.
Butter is now officially healthy, I believe. Good butter certainly tastes as if it is.

Ah! I have a good supplier of wild caught brownies and greyling, the rivers in Herefordshire are well populated!

 

[Thom Blach]

Ah! I have a good supplier of wild caught brownies and greyling, the rivers in Herefordshire are well populated!

Really? personal or professional?

 

[Steven Pritchard]

Personal!

 

[Paul Anderson]

I've never seen zander (or pike or perch) for sale in fishmongers here, though pike and perch are pretty abundant in our canals and lochs. They're classed as "coarse" fish and never really considered edible. It was only when I went to France that I saw zander on restaurant menus and also tried quenelles of pike.