Fish

Fish and pepper are excellent culinary partners. Imagine grilled salmon or Dover sole without a dusting of freshly ground pepper; or smoked mackerel fillets without their coating of cracked black peppercorns. Pepper is there for a reason – it cuts through oiliness and gives blandness a welcome boost, and used with a light touch it augments the delicate sweetness of good fresh fish. It’s there for texture too – a full-on pepper crust adds welcome crunch as well as piquancy.

I have focused mainly on quick, simple techniques – grilling, flash-frying or brief roasting at a high temperature, for example – which allow you to appreciate the inherent tenderness and clean flavour of fish, as well as pepper’s intriguing spicy aroma.