Canarian · Starter · From the menu TravesÃa
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.
Vieja is the fish everyone on Gran Canaria grew up eating boiled, and it is far better than that treatment suggests. A short cure firms the flesh without cooking it. The dashi is clear because it is dripped, not pressed: you get all the tomato flavour and none of the colour, and the first spoonful surprises people every time.
Ingredients
- 600 g vieja (parrotfish) fillets, skinned and pin-boned
- 60 g fine salt and 40 g caster sugar, mixed, for the cure
- 1.5 kg very ripe tomatoes
- 1 postcard-sized piece of kombu
- 5 g katsuobushi
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 cucumber
- 2 tbsp mojo verde (see the separate recipe)
- Olive oil, chives
Method
- The day before, blitz the tomatoes with a teaspoon of salt to a rough pulp. Tip into a muslin-lined sieve over a bowl and refrigerate overnight. Let it drip. Do not squeeze it or the liquid goes cloudy.
- Warm the clear tomato water gently with the kombu to 60C, hold it there ten minutes, then take it off, add the katsuobushi and leave five minutes. Strain and season with the soy. Chill.
- Bury the fillets in the salt and sugar mix for 20 minutes only, then rinse well and pat completely dry. Wrap and chill for an hour.
- Peel the cucumber in strips, quarter it, remove the seeds and cut it into small dice. Salt it lightly ten minutes ahead and drain.
- Slice the cured fish thinly 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.