Poached blue eye with celery, pea and ginger broth

With a little stock on hand this is a fast dish with bright early spring flavours. It’s aromatic and has a delightful crunch of lightly cooked vegetables with the softness of gently poached fish.

Credit: Sharyn Cairns

• serves

  2-4

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  15 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 400 ml fish stock (see Note)
• 15 g ginger, thinly sliced (approximately a 2 cm piece)
• 30 g butter
• 100 g  Chinese celery, cut into 2 cm stalks (approximately 1 cup), leaves set aside
• 2 tbsp light soy, approximately
• river salt and white pepper
• 350 g blue eye trevalla, cut into 5 cm chunks (see Note)
• 8 sawtooth coriander leaves, cut across into 1 cm strips
• ½ cup peas, fresh and blanched, or frozen
• 140 gm wombok, cut across into 5 cm pieces (approximately 2 cups)
• 3 medium French shallots, thinly sliced
• sesame and olive oils, for drizzling
• rice, to serve

Instructions

Place the fish stock, ginger and butter into a wide based saucepan over a medium heat and bring to a simmer. Add the celery stalks and let it cook for a few minutes, season to your liking with the soy, a little salt and the pepper.

Add the fish to the pot, give it a little jiggle to move the fish around and then continue simmering very gently for 5 minutes or so by which stage the fish should be getting close to being cooked.

Add the coriander, peas and wombok and continue cooking until the cabbage starts to wilt, another 2 minutes or so. Check the fish, when it’s cooked it should start to break apart with a little poke.

Once your fish is just cooked, add in the shallots and celery leaves, mix and spoon the contents of the saucepan into a large serving bowl adding in all the stock.

Drizzle with a large splash of olive oil and a smaller splash of sesame oil.

Serve with rice.

Notes

• If you have time it’s worth making your own fish stock as you will have more control over the seasoning of it. Use our recipe, or add a little more celery to the stock than you normally would if using your own recipe.

• White fleshed fish with thicker flesh works best here.

Photography by Sharyn Cairns. Styling by Lee Blaylock. Food preparation by Tiffany Page. Creative concept by Lou Fay.

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Read our interview with Tama. This recipe is from our online column, The seasonal cook: Celery. View previous The seasonal cook columns and recipes.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.