Canarian · Main · From the menu Huerta
Stone bass, green mojo, heritage potato
Cherne, mojo verde, papa antigua
The most Canarian plate I cook. Cherne with the skin crisped hard and dry, green mojo underneath, and heritage potatoes crushed rather than mashed. Three elements, no sauce reduction, nothing hiding the fish.
Cherne is the island's fish and it is firm enough to take a proper sear. Everything here depends on the skin, and the skin depends on it being dry: leave the fillets uncovered in the fridge for a few hours before service and you will get a crust that stays crisp all the way to the table.
Ingredients
- 6 cherne (stone bass) fillets, about 160 g each, skin on and scaled
- 800 g papas antiguas or small waxy potatoes
- 300 ml mojo verde (see the separate recipe)
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 30 g butter
- 1 lemon
- Coarse salt, flaked salt, white pepper
Method
- Several hours ahead, set the fillets skin up on a rack in the fridge, uncovered, so the skin dries out. This is the whole secret.
- Boil the potatoes in well salted water until tender, drain, and crush them roughly with a fork with a little olive oil and salt. Leave them coarse. Keep warm.
- Score the skin of each fillet twice, lightly, and salt the skin only, right before cooking.
- Get a heavy pan hot with the olive oil. Lay the fillets in skin side down away from you and press each one flat with a fish slice for the first 20 seconds so it does not curl.
- Cook on the skin for about four fifths of the total time, four to five minutes, until you can see the flesh turning opaque up the side. Do not move them.
- Add the butter, turn the fish, take the pan off the heat and let the residual heat finish it, 45 seconds. Squeeze a little lemon into the butter and spoon it over the flesh, never the skin.
- Spoon mojo verde onto warm plates, the crushed potato beside it, and the fish on top skin up. Flaked salt on the skin at the last second.
Serve it with. Nothing else. The mojo is the sauce and the potato is the starch, and a third element makes it a mess.