Pan Fried Sea Bass with Crab, Prawns and Fennel

Serves 2

Takes under 2 hours

A classy, good-restaurant quality meal, this is a delicious set of tastes; the orange and the fennel lend themselves beautifully to the seafood.

Seafood:-

75g white crab meat

2 x 75g pieces of Sea Bass fillet, skin on

2 raw tiger prawns, peeled. Keep the heads and shells

Half a small red chilli, very finely chopped

1 tspn finely chopped tarragon

Sauce:-

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

2 medium tomatoes, halved

1 stick celery, roughly chopped

Heads and shells of prawns

juice of half an orange and 2.5cm (1”) of zest

2 tbspns double cream or creme fraiche

To serve:-

1 small bulb fennel, cut into 8 equal sized chunks

Half an orange, segmented, each segment halved

• Preheat the oven to 220C. Place the prawn shells and heads in a baking tray with a sprinkle of olive oil, and bake for 10 minutes. Place them in a small saucepan with the onion, tomatoes, celery and orange zest and juice. Cover with water, bring to a boil, then simmer gently for one hour
• Mix the chilli, tarragon and crab carefully, taking care not to break the crab up too much
• When the sauce has been bubbling for an hour, strain, bring back to a boil, and reduce by a half. Stir in the double cream. Keep warm
• Steam the fennel until just cooked. Keep warm
• When ready to serve, heat the sauce up again; it should be served warm, not hot. Then heat up a non-stick frying pan, and drizzle with a little of your favourite fish frying oil. Put the prawns in, and then the fish fillets, skin side down. Fry the fish for 2 minutes skin side down, and 1 minute skin side up. Cook the prawns until just pink. Put a flattened heap of the crab mixture in the centre of each plate. Arrange the fennel and orange pieces around, place a slice of fish skin side up on each heap of crab, and add the prawns. Drizzle the sauce around, but not over, the fish, and serve