Red Mullet Filets in Pistachio Crust

Hello, everybody. Today we’re going to start our session. I’m preparing some red mullet. Red mullet, this particular one comes from the Mediterranean Sea. We are going to prepare it today with a pistachio crust and some braised Belgium endive with the port reduction sauce. So to get started we’ll actually going to start port reduction. Here we have some port which is going to go straight into a small sauce pan. I’m going to add some thyme for flavoring. And then we’re going to bring it to a boil. When it reaches a rolling boil point, we are going to lower the flame and simmer it until it reduces its volume by half. In the meanwhile, we’ve got some pistachios here and if you have a food processor at home, you could actually put them in a food processor and kind of grind them a little bit and if you didn’t, just put them in a zip-lock bag and just roughly pound them up. Definitely, the food processor is a better tool but you got to improvise. So we’re going to put those crumbs into a plate here and then here we have our port that is ranged to boiling point so we’re going to lower our flame. The flame is actually the alcohol burning away which is quite alright. And then we have some all-purpose flour here, we have some buttermilk in a plate and we have a pistachio crust here. So what we’re going to do is first and foremost, we’re going to put our baking dish into the oven which has been preheated so that it gets nice and hot. Now we’re going to crust our red mullet, only the meat side. First in the flour then to the buttermilk and then the pistachio then we’re going to do that with all the fillets. Mullet again is original. Well this particular one comes from the Mediterranean Sea. However, it is a fairly big sea and usually the one closer to European coast are smaller and brightly red. Those that are actually closer to the African coast like this particular one are slightly bigger and a little pinkish. However, the texture is the same and the flavor is the same. Here we have our pan. We’re going to put some butter in it. Now, I’m going to put some thyme in that as well always for flavorings. The butter is turning it nice and golden brown. So we see that the butter milk better yet has a nice pistachio crust attached to it. I’m going to put again the meat side down on the butter and we’re going to put that in the oven after this. In the meanwhile, we’re going to prepare our braised Belgian endive. It has this shape. It has a sweet and bitter flavor, very meaty texture. So we’re going to cut in half and do a V-shape incision to remove the core which we’re going to use as well. You see that and then we’re going to cut the leaves about a half inch wide. And we do want to use the quarter of the endive as well. We’re just going to cut the bottom off and then we’re going to slice it much thinner since it is denser and we want it to cook at the same time as the leaves. Here we have a sauté pan that I’ve put on a fire to get nice and hot. And I’m going to chop some shallot; almost for the endive. I’m going to put some extra virgin olive oil on the pan and a little butter. I’ll just probably put our shallot in. You want it fried a little bit but not too much, just until it begins to turn color. Then we’re going put our endive in. And season with salt. You could see the port is already reducing nicely. We’ll let it thicken for a minute. So you want the flame under the pan for the endives to be nice and hot because the leafy vegetable as with most vegetables actually tends to exude water and then you don’t want to boil your dish. You could want eventually bread this so if you guys really want to evaporate the water as it comes out. We’re going to check on our mullet. We’ll see how it’s going. Make sure that the nuts don’t burn in the bottom. They’re just fine. And I have a sprig of thyme also to the endive. And obviously red mullet is not a pepper. Seafood, that you’ll find in most supermarkets regardless of how fancy they are. So a red snapper is obviously a good substitution for that and usually snapper fillets are bigger in size so what you want to do is cut, cool slices that are similar in size to these one. So that’s about two inches across and possibly three to four inches in length. And you would definitely get a nice dish. And again mullet has a very meaty texture and it definitely has that flavor that reminds of the sea as no blend at all so for those people who don’t like fishy fish, you could do something that might want to stay away. And that for sure maybe substitute the mullet with the snapper. Anyway, our endive is nicely bread. We’re going to put it on the side. Again, maybe in a different burner, we’re going to slow the heat and then we’re going to check our snapper and it looks like just fine. I want to check with the doneness. So what you’ll do, you might want to bend a fillet in half and see in the inside of it. And it looks like it needs one extra minute. So I’m not putting the skin on the pan because it has a very nice pinkish tone and I want to leave that as part of the presentation. One minute and then in the meanwhile, we’re going to prepare our plate here. And put some of the Belgium endive in the middle of the plate. And I take a mullet which is now ready. You see the skin begun to bubble that means that has gotten all the way to the top. We’re going to take one nice fillet and then I put it on the top, skin side up and another fillet. Just be sure the crusts are going to flip over just like saucer. If people can see we actually have pistachio going on the plate as well then I’m going to take a little some of our port syrup. And finish off with drizzle of olive oil. And for a little touch of color, a little bit of thyme. And the finish plate and if you want to finish it off with a little Hawaiian sea salt or any kind of sea salt, it is flavor and texture at the same time.