"Mise en place" is a poncey chef's term for "getting everything ready before you start." It's obviously necessary in a restaurant kitchen so that you can get going as soon as the head chef starts yelling in your direction, but things are generally a bit more relaxed in the kitchen at home. It's good to be organised, but let's face it - you're going to be interrupted by the phone/doorbell/kids/cat anyway.
Having said that, certain recipes do benefit from getting everything
ready before you apply any heat to any pans. This one is ready in about
seven minutes from the first ingredient meeting heat, so you really
need to get everything ready before you start.
Get a pan of water going, then make a start on the prep.
There are two bits of chopping and preparing to do: the sauce for the pak choi, and a bit of garnish to prettify the dish with when served. The sauce is simply one clove of garlic, crushed under the heel of a knife blade then finely chopped, one teaspoon of preserved ginger (or the equivalent amount of fresh ginger, if you prefer), two tablespoonfuls of soy sauce and one teaspoonful of Thai fish sauce.
The garnish is just a couple of spring onions and a mild chilli pepper. Don't be macho and go for a hot one - we're using this as a garnish, which means it's not cooked, which means we're getting the full chilli heat from it. Getting great big explosions of chilli heat in an otherwise innocent mouthful of tasty fish is not big and it's not clever.
I use these handy little ramekins which I got for Christmas one year as part of one of those fancy Oil&Vinegar selection boxes that you can only get in December. The contents weren't up to much, but I use the ramekins all the time when I'm making this sort of thing, and curries which require a particular spice mix.
At this point I came across a bit of a pak choi-related problem. I have a regular whinge about vegetables that you can only buy in packets. I dislike the waste of resources and the landfill involved in unnecessary packaging, I don't like being told how much can buy at a time, and today I discovered a new one: packaging hides substandard veg. I bought a pack of two pak choi which looked fine, but when I opened it up I discovered that one was unusable - every single leaf on it was wilted and brown, so when I'd removed them there was nothing left but the bulb.
I'd normally want to serve one pak choi per person, but tonight we made do with a half each.
Either way, you want to cut your pak choi in half lengthwise.
The red mullet came from the Pimpernel Fisheries stall at the Farnham Food Festival and I must admit it wasn't cheap. I have seen it far cheaper elsewhere - in seaside towns in France and in England - but it doesn't seem to be readily available inland so I didn't mind paying a bit extra. If you can't get hold of red mullet, or if it's beyond your budget, I reckon this would be just as nice with trout or mackerel.
Right: we're ready to do some cooking. Get the fish going in oil over a medium heat, skin side down. You want to do most of the cooking skin side down, then turn it over for the last couple of minutes - about seven minutes in total should do it.
When cooking something as delicate as a fish fillet, it helps to know the quirks of your equipment: these two fillets were quite different in size, so when I noticed that the smaller one was noticeably more cooked than the larger one I moved it to a cooler part of the pan and the big one to a warmer spot. Heavier, cast-iron pans are less prone to this, and electric hobs spread their heat better than gas ones when they're in good condition - but they're prone to a different set of problems.
When the fish is nearly ready (about like the photo above), turn it over then put the pak choi in the boiling water that you started earlier. Leave it in for about thirty seconds then lift it out with a slotted spoon and put it on kitchen roll to dry.
Heat oil in a second pan, put in the pak choi, and add the soy sauce mixture.
Swoosh it all about a bit in the pan, then serve the pak choi, place the fish on top and garnish with the spring onions and chilli pepper. You'll probably do it more neatly than I did.
Taste verdict
The red mullet sings for itself. It's a lovely fish, and one we should eat more of. It's just a shame you can't find it in most places. My girlfriend and I both said the same thing about pak choi - we hadn't had it for ages, and we'd forgotten how much we liked it! What a tasty veg - and the simple little sauce and garnish let the two ingredients speak for themselves.
Financial verdict
Two red mullet fillets - £5
Two pak choi - £1.50 (I know I had to throw one away, but I paid for two so the amount stands)
Two spring onions - 20p
Chilli pepper - free, off my chilli plant
Soy sauce, Thai fish sauce, garlic, ginger - pennies, from store
£3.35 each. Yeah, it's a lot. But... that's mostly down to geography. We seem to live in a fish desert here: the nearest proper fishmonger is about 20 miles away, which is ridiculous considering that the sea is only 35 miles away. When I lived in Brighton, I used to buy red mullet from the bloke on the beach as a cheap dinner. It's not possible round here.
The Skinny
Start a pan of water boiling.
Prepare the sauce: put one crushed and chopped clove of garlic, one teaspoonful of preserved ginger, one teaspoonful of Thai fish sauce and two tablespoonfuls of soy sauce into a ramekin or other suitable container.
Prepare the garnish: chop two spring onions and one mild chilli pepper.
Prepare the pak choi (one per person, if all's gone well): cut in half lengthways.
Start your fillets of red mullet (or other fish) skin side down in oil in a frying pan over a medium heat.
When the fish is nearly done, turn it over.
Now put the pak choi in the water, which will be boiling by now, for 30 seconds then remove and dry off on kitchen roll.
Put the pak choi in hot oil in a second frying pan and pour the soy sauce mixture over.
Fry for a minute, then turn over and fry for another minute.
Serve the pak choi with the fish on top then garnish with the spring onion and chilli pepper.
WeightWatchers ProPoints
3
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