Filet de Pagre Grillé au Beurre de Pissala (ou Poutargue) et Poulpes d’Olives Noires

Name: Filet de Pagre Grillé au Beurre de Pissala (ou Poutargue) et Poulpes d’Olives Noires (Grilled Couch’s Sea Bream or Red Porgy with Anchovy Butter & Olive Purée)
Yield: 4
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: 3 tbsp/45 ml pissala or poutargue (commercial anchovy paste may be substituted); 7 oz/200 g black olives (preferably the small ones from nice), stoned & crushed; fresh chervil for decoration; 1 tsp/5 ml of fennel seeds; 4 fish of 14 oz/400 g each or 2 of 1 lb 12 oz/800 g, cut in fillets; olive oil; salt & black pepper; 7 oz/200 g butter

Grilled Couch’s Sea Bream or Red Porgy with Anchovy Butter & Olive Purée

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Table in Provence

By Leslie Forbes

Published 1987

About

Pierre Minguella says the pagre is a ‘bâtard’, halfway between the pageot rouge (Pandora) & the sar. A bastard the pagre may be, but as a member of the highly-prized bream family (the only Mediterranean member available on the Atlantic’s western side), its firm, delicious flesh is superb when baked or, as in this recipe, grilled with salty anchovies. Daurade (gilt-head bream), the pagre’s more illustrious cousin, may be substituted (or any fleshy salt-water fish), with equally fine resu