Spaghetti Il Nero di Sepia - with sea bream, Indonesian tiger prawns and black garlic

I've been looking for a bulb of black garlic since visiting Ferdie's Food Lab at the end of last year, and sampling Simon's prawns with fermented garlic. It's sweet, sticky, and unlike anything else you will taste (although it is slightly reminiscent of blackened, burnt onions, but much much sweeter and without the bitterness).

I finally managed to track it down and paired it with spaghetti Il Nero di Sepia (squid ink spaghetti), which we brought back from Priano last year... in keeping with the black theme.

Sea Bream fillets, giant Indonesian tiger prawns (absolute beasts), thinly sliced radish and plenty of lemon to add a sharp tang to the sticky sweetness of the garlic...

http://iblog4.me/

Sea bream with fennel, crispy tentacles and caramelised kumquats

Kumquats are an unusual fruit. A sharp, lemon-like citrus centre, encased with a distinctly orangey casing that, instead of having a bitter outer rind like an orange, is sweet and fragrant.

Citrus always compliments fish well so, when I spotted these kumquats at Borough market, I thought they would make the perfect pairing with a pan fried fillet of sea bream and sauteed fennel.

The kumquats were caramelised until sticky and the sea bream was topped with crispy garlic tentacles from baby squid.

Leiths week 4 - pan fried sea bream with sauce vierge & red onion focaccia

This week at Leiths was a busy one... we filleted a sea bream, made bread, and created a sauce vierge.

My sea bream was pan fried on a griddle pan with lots of butter, to ensure the skin was really crispy. This was served with fresh green beans, crushed new potatoes and a sauce vierge. The sauce was made by heating good quality olive oil (200ml) on a low heat for 20 minutes with finely diced shallots, one clove of garlic, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme. The oil was then removed from the heat and finely chopped parsley, chives and concasse of tomato were added (see Leith's week 2 for concassing method!)

Next, we made a red onion focaccia. The dough for making a good focaccia is notoriously wet so this does make working it fairly tricky. Once we had managed to scrape the mixture off the table, left it to rise and smothered it in roasted garlic and caramelised red onion, the bread was baked in a hot oven for around 20 minutes...

Next week, spatch cock quail with pomegranate molasses and a watercress and feta salad... plus a pear and Medjool date strudel.