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.