Canarian · Starter · From the menu Travesía
Cured parrotfish, tomato dashi, cucumber, green mojo
Vieja curada, dashi de tomate, pepino, mojo verde
Vieja cured briefly in salt and sugar, sliced thin, and served in a clear tomato dashi poured at the table. Cucumber for crunch, a line of green mojo for the island.
Two numbers here come from a careful reading rather than from tradition. The cure is one to one salt and sugar, which is what most published cures use, weighed at about one and a half per cent of the fish. Only two sources anywhere weigh a cure against the fish at all, at one and two per cent, so I have taken the middle and I want you to know it is a middle rather than a rule. The other is the dashi: nobody has published tomato water infused with both kombu and katsuobushi. The nearest thing in print uses katsuobushi alone, cold. This is my composition, built from parts that are each well documented.
Ingredients
- 600 g vieja (parrotfish) fillets, skinned and pin-boned
- 4.5 g fine salt and 4.5 g caster sugar, mixed, for the cure
- 1 kg very ripe tomatoes, for about 600 to 650 ml of clear water
- 10 g fine salt for the tomatoes
- 10 g kombu
- 10 g katsuobushi
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 cucumber
- 2 tbsp mojo verde
- Olive oil, chives
Method
- The day before, blitz the tomatoes with the salt to a coarse purée. Tip into a sieve lined with doubled muslin over a bowl and refrigerate 8 to 12 hours. Let it drip and do not press it. Every source that mentions pressing forbids it: pressing turns clear water into cloudy red juice and there is no undoing it. A kilo gives about 600 to 650 ml.
- Add the kombu and katsuobushi to the cold tomato water and leave it refrigerated for at least two hours, then strain and season with the soy. Cold infusion keeps the tomato clean; heating it to the usual dashi temperature cooks the tomato flavour off.
- Bury the fillets in the salt and sugar for 25 to 30 minutes, no longer. Rinse well and pat completely dry.
- Wrap and rest the fish in the fridge for about an hour before slicing.
- Peel the cucumber in strips, quarter it, seed it and cut it into small dice. Salt it lightly ten minutes ahead and drain.
- Slice the cured fish about 5 mm thick against the grain and arrange it in cold, deep bowls.
- Add the cucumber, a thin line of mojo verde and a few drops of olive oil, then pour the cold tomato dashi at the table so people see it arrive. Chives at the last moment.
Serve it with. An albillo or any sharp unoaked white, cold enough to hurt.