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Tom Aikens: Baked plaice with lemon peel and lemon risotto

Prep time
20 mins
Cooking Time
30 mins
Serves
4

Ingredients

For the plaice

  • 8 plaice fillets (can also use lemon sole and halibut)
  • 1 lemon, wash and peel the zest with a vegetable peeler into thin strips, keep the juice
  • 100 ml white wine
  • 80 ml olive oil
  • 80 g unsalted butter
  • 4 g fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves cut in half
  • 4 sliced garlic cloves
  • 2 g coarse sea salt
  • 10 turns of fresh black pepper

For the risotto

  • 200 g risotto rice
  • 550 ml chicken stock, hot
  • 50 g butter
  • 50 ml olive oil
  • 3 g coarse sea salt
  • 50 g grated Parmesan
  • 150 g shallots, finely diced
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 6 turns of fresh ground black pepper
  • 10 g fine chopped garlic
  • 1 g chopped thyme
  • 200 ml white wine
  • 15 ml lemon juice
  • Fine zest of one lemon
  • Large peel off 1 lemon taken off with a speed peeler
  • 50 g crème fraiche

Method

Before you start to cook the plaice, you will need to start the risotto as this will take just as long.

Pre-heat the oven to 170c

Lemon risotto

  1. Sweat off the shallots, garlic, thyme, large lemon peel and bay leaf on a low heat in the butter and olive oil. Make sure they do not brown.
  2. Add the rice and cook for 2 minutes, stirring all the time so the oil is absorbed.
  3. Add the white wine and cook until it has all evaporated. This will take a minute or so.
  4. Slowly add the hot chicken stock to the rice, little by little, stirring every minute or so. This will take around 16 minutes until the rice is almost cooked.
  5. After 4 minutes of cooking, cook the plaice in the oven. When the rice is almost cooked, add the fine lemon zest, juice, crème fraiche, and Parmesan.
  6. Re-season if needed and cook for 2 minutes.

Baked plaice

  1. To cook the fish, take a large non-stick shallow oven tray and spread butter all over it.
  2. Put 1/2 the herbs and aromatic seasonings on the tray, including salt and pepper then the rest the plaice on top.
  3. Drizzle with the white wine and lemon juice then a few specks of butter and some more seasoning.
  4. Cover the shallow tray in tin foil and bake the plaice for in the oven for approx 6-8 mins.
  5. Serve with the lemon risotto.