Fish and Shellfish

A lot of chefs will tell you that fish is what they like to cook most, often implying some great skill. Fish is quite easy to cook, though, and the difficulty is in tracking down really good raw materials. There’s more variety in fish than meat, with a range of textures and flavours from those with fragile flesh and delicate flavour like sole and whiting to coarse, almost meaty fish like porbeagle shark. Obviously they’re all good for different things: red mullet will take robust flavourings like red peppers or powerful olive oil dressings which would overpower a fish like Dover sole. Generally, with fish, you should work with a light hand. You are dealing with quite delicate flavours on the whole, and an extravagant use of any powerful herb like fennel or thyme will dominate the dish.