Nestled in the peaceful township of Glencullen, in the mountains of Dublin, (yes, there are actually mountains outside the city), is Jonnie Fox’s, one of Ireland’s oldest and highest sitting pubs. It’s a rather eclectic place with live music and Irish dancing every night of the week; the place is spacious but every nook and cranny is filled with old timely items — clocks, pots, pans, portraits and paintings — and tables, lots of tables.
On this occasion, I had a delicious grilled sea bass fillet with spring onion mash, samphire & pickled shallots, served with seafood pastis sauce. Some days you have a meal that’s good, it’s satisfactory. Other days, you enjoy something that fills every part of you; it completes every craving you ever had that day. This dish was like that. Everything was delicious. Everything. It’s all I’ve thought about this week. I’m not going to attempt to recreate it as I’m not a pro at making a pastis sauce or any kind of cream sauce for that matter, but I have opted for something similar that makes for an easy weeknight dinner. Recipe below.
Grilled sea bass with samphire
Ingredients
2 sea bass fillets
Sunflower oil, for brushing
40g butter
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp capers, roughly chopped
Juice and zest of ½ lemon
1 tbsp chopped parsley
90g samphire
Method
Preheat the grill to medium. Brush the sea bass fillets with the sunflower oil, sprinkle with black pepper and place skin-side down on a greased foil-lined baking tray. Place under the grill for 6-8 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through (no need to flip the fillets).
Do the next two tasks quickly — melt butter in a frying pan until it foams, fry the garlic and capers for 30 seconds. Meanwhile, bring a pan of water to the boil, add the samphire and simmer for 3 mins. Drain and toss with the rest of the melted butter and a drizzle of olive oil.
Serve the fish on top of the samphire drizzled with any remaining melted butter from the pans and with a lemon wedge on the side.