Three exciting ways to cook fish: From tuna tartare with ponza to Korean pancakes

We've had our fill of turkey and all things festive, so instead serve up fish from Bart's Fish Tales cookbook for a lighter supper

Pinto beans with cod and thyme

Serves 4

Prep: 12 hours
Cook: 1 hour 15

I love fish on the bone. Why? Because the bones give a lot of flavour to the dish that wouldn’t ordinarily be there if cooked filleted. We should learn that there is a good reason to use the whole of the fish and cut pieces straight through the bone. You benefit from extra flavour and it is less expensive because there is no waste.

300g dried pinto beans
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
10 sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped from their stalks
25g tbsp butter
2 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
4 x 160–180-g cod steaks
extra virgin olive oil
peanut oil, for frying
salt and pepper

Alternative fish: haddock or hake

Soak the pinto beans in a large bowl of cold water for 12 hours. Drain and rinse the beans by running cold water over them. Heat 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a deep pan over a medium high heat and sauté the carrot, onion and celery for 2 minutes until translucent.

Pour in 1 litre of cold water, add the bay leaves, thyme – reserving a few thyme leaves for garnish – and the beans. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 40–50 minutes or until the beans are tender but still have some bite. Drain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover the beans to keep them warm.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour until smooth. Cook over a low heat for 1–2 minutes. Add 200ml of the bean cooking liquid and stir or whisk until the sauce is thickened and smooth. Stir in the beans and sherry vinegar and season with salt and pepper.

Heat some peanut oil for shallow frying in a frying pan over a high heat and fry the cod until lightly browned on both sides. This will take 4–5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the steaks. Spoon the pinto beans into deep serving plates and lift the cod steaks on top. Garnish with the reserved thyme leaves.

Tuna tartare with ponzu shoyu

Serves 4

Prep: 50 minutes

This salad takes inspiration from a tuna tartare but to make the best of the meaty fish you chop the flesh more coarsely. Bringing together a tartare requires a combination of flavours and textures. I love Japanese cuisine – it is pure and fresh and ingredients are treated with the utmost resect. Everything tastes better with ponzu. Here it adds delicious flavour without overpowering the delicate tuna. If you prefer a finer dice, you can chop all of the ingredients more finely for a happy tartare.

Ponzu shoyu

100ml soy sauce
5 tbsp lemon juice
4 tsp orange juice
2 tbsp dashi, cooled
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp mirin

Tartare

1 tbsp white sesame seeds
200g skipjack or yellowfin tuna fillet, cut into 1cm cubes
1 spring onion, trimmed and finely chopped
1cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and diced
handful of coriander leaves
handful of daikon leaves
½ cucumber, deseeded and coarsely chopped
½ red onion, thinly sliced

Alternative fish: albacore tuna

To make the ponzu shoyu dressing, combine the soy sauce, lemon juice, orange juice, dashi, rice vinegar and mirin in a bowl. Set aside for at least 30 minutes to let the flavours develop. To make the tartare, roast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until they are golden brown. Remove the seeds from the pan and leave to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the tuna, spring onion, ginger and avocados with half the sesame seeds, coriander and daikon leaves, reserving the rest. Add the dressing and mix well. Add the cucumber and red onion and mix again with your hands. Divide between four serving plates and sprinkle with the remaining sesame seeds, coriander and daikon leaves.

There are a few MSC-certified yellowfin tuna fisheries in the world, such as in the Solomon Islands and along the east coast of Australia.

Korean fish pancake

Serves 4

Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes

Savoury pancakes are served in bars all over South Korea, chopped by the chef into bite-size pieces that can be picked up with chopsticks and dipped into a sauce. Often served with an unfiltered rice wine called makgeolli that can be blended with fruit and ice for a cooling cocktail. You can make fish pancakes with any fish species or cooked seafood so long as you use the base of spring onion.

2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
25g sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rice vinegar
½ garlic clove, crushed
½ red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

Pancakes

1 tbsp white sesame seeds
250g plain flour
250ml cold water
2 eggs, beaten
4 scallops (North American sea scallops), removed from their shells
4 squid, cleaned and cut into small pieces
4 large prawns, peeled
12 spring onions, cut into 4cm lengths
2 red peppers, deseeded and diced, plus extra for garnish
2 jalapeño chillies, sliced, plus extra for garnish
handful of coriander, leaves pulled from their stalks
½ red chilli, thinly sliced sunflower oil, for frying
salt
lime halves, to serve

To make the dip, put the soy sauce, fish sauce and sugar in a pan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool and then add the lemon juice, rice vinegar and 1 tablespoon of water. Finally, stir in the garlic and chilli.

Roast the sesame seeds for 1–2 minutes in a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat until golden. Remove from the pan and set aside. To make the pancakes, sift the flour into a large bowl. To avoid lumps forming, whisk the water into the flour a little at a time before whisking in the eggs to make a smooth batter. Finally add a pinch of salt.

Add the scallops, squid and prawns to the batter, stirring the seafood in quickly but thoroughly so all the pieces are well coated. This amount of batter is enough to make two large pancakes. Heat a little sunflower oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and add half the spring onions, the peppers and the jalapeño chillies.

Fry for 1 minute until the vegetables have softened and become slightly translucent. Add half the batter to the pan and give it a gentle shake so the pancake will slide out easily when it is cooked. Lower the heat, cover the pan with a lid and fry for 4–6 minutes, turning the pancake over once it has set underneath. Fry the other side for 1 minute and then remove the pancake from the pan and keep it warm in a low oven (100°C) or cover with foil. Fry a second pancake in the same way.

Scatter over the coriander leaves, jalapeño and red chilli slices and roasted sesame seeds. Cut each pancake in half and then into smaller pieces. Serve with the dip and lime halves to squeeze over.

Extracted from Bart’s Fish Tales by Bart Van Olphen, published by Pavilion. Photographs by David Loftus