Curtis Stone’s pan-roasted snapper with cauliflower and mushrooms

I've got a great recipe for you. It's my pan-roast and snapper. It's delicious with a side of roasted cauliflower and mushrooms drizzled with a really tangy vinaigrette. A lot of people say they don't feel confident cooking fish and seafood at home. But cooking perfect crispy-skin fish is surprisingly easy, and it's a great way to impress your guests when you’re having a dinner party. So give it a go.

All you have to do is get yourself down to that seafood counter at Coles and pick up some beautiful, Aussie snapper fillets. Make sure they have the skin on. While I do this, I'm going to preheat the oven for the cauliflower at 230 Celsius, or 210 if you're using the fan setting. Alright, let's grab a small saucepan like this one and add the vinegar and then the currents, the shallots, the brown sugar and the water. It's a really quick, almost like a pickle mixture.

The vinegar, the water and the sugar is how you do a basic pickle. But with the shallots and those beautiful currants it really will give us a wonderful flavour. Alright, so we're going to bring it up to a simmer, so you want it on sort of a moderate to high temperature.

Once it starts to boil like this, you drop the heat all the way down to just a really gentle simmer. After about five minutes, you'll see those currants really start to puff up - they'll plump - and then the liquid will have reduced down to about a quarter cupful. Alright, it is ready to go, so I'm going to bring it over here.

Now just before I spoon it into that bowl, I'm going to combine a little bit of olive oil, just a tablespoon or two and a little bit of salt. Give it a quick whisk. And that's it. Your dressing is done. Now you just leave that at room temperature, the flavours will get better and better.

Time to get the cauliflower in the oven. Take your baking tray and toss your cauliflower with a little bit of salt and some oil, and some salt. Give those a little toss. Okay, we popped that in a really nice, hot oven. It's gonna be about 20 to 25 minutes, and then they'll be tender and lightly brown.

Alright, while that's still roasting. Let's get started on the mushrooms. Okay, for this you need a hot pan and you need a little bit of oil. Now mushrooms are a bit like sponges, they'll absorb whatever you put in the pan. So just give a little drizzle of oil to start. And then in a nice big saute pan like this, I'm using non-stick so the mushrooms don't get stuck in, go ahead and drop your mushrooms in.

Now, the temptation is to start shaking that pan immediately, isn't it? You can give it a quick shake to make sure that the oil found the mushroom, but then leave it alone - we're gonna give it four or five minutes - then what you're gonna want to do is develop that golden colour on the bottom.

And then after that you stir them occasionally and keep them cooking for about another four minutes until they’re tender and brown. If the pan looks a little dry, you can always come back over and just hit it with a little bit more of that olive oil. That's what you want to hear, that little sizzle right then you know there's some activity down there and something's getting some colour.

Okay, I think cauliflower is ready. Sure is. Who knew that you could roast cauliflower so simply and easily? And look at that beautiful caramelisation on it. It's absorbed a little of that oil, the seasoning’s gotten in there. So we let that cool off for a minute. And now in another pan, we're going to start our fish. So go ahead, take a cold pan, you can see I can put my hand in there, a decent amount of oil, because what we're going to do is we're going to add our fish to this pan. We've got this beautiful snapper.

Now, of course, we want it with that skin on that looks absolutely wonderful. We're going to score it really quick, which is very, very easy to do. All you do is pop it onto your cutting board. Give it a little pinch, just like that. And then cut it straight through the skin in a couple of places, maybe two or three scores. With our fish, you need a good amount of salt.

But before we even do that, I want to show you another little pro tip, you get yourself a piece of paper and just dab it over that fish. You want to make sure that skin is really nice and dry. Then get a little bit of salt and season that fish generously. Now you’re not just adding in salt for the flavour. You're also adding the salt to draw that last little bit of moisture out of the skin. Then you pat it down again. And then this way that skin's gonna get ultra crispy.

Now into a cold pan, you take your fish, drop it in, move it around, just so you get that oil, totally covering the fish. Tiny bit more oil. Then you can go ahead, turn on your heat, but just start it nice and slow. I'm gonna turn mine up to three or four for about five minutes and then eventually I'll crank that heat up hotter. Check on my mushrooms, oh they're looking great.

Once they’re sort of tender and you've got a little bit of colour, that's it, it's time to add the garlic and then next goes the cauliflower. I'll tell you what the second that garlic hits the pan you smell and it, and it smells wonderful. Alright, let's get the cauliflower in there. That beautiful roasted cauliflower, add it to the pan. Give those mushrooms and beautiful cauliflower a toss. I'm happy with that, so I'm going to go ahead and turn that off.

We'll leave it in the pan so it stays nice and warm. And the last thing I'll do is take some of that beautiful flat-leaf parsley, and just sprinkle it all the way through the mushrooms and cauliflower. Okay, the fish has been in for about three minutes now on a low temperature. Now I'm going to turn it up. So I started it on a four, I'm now turning it up to a seven, you're about to see what's going to happen next, it's going to start sizzling a little and then it is important that we just give a tiny bit of pressure using your spatula or your fish turner here just to make sure that skin doesn't curl up too much.

Now you're starting to hear that sizzle, right? When I first put these fish fillets in, it covered the entire bottom of the pan. And now you can see them starting to shrink up ever so slightly. Now for the last minute while we cook it on the skin side, you crank it up all the way up, I’ll turn it up to a nine. You can see they're still moving around my non-stick pan. You notice I had that little peek right there.

Now you can see my fish are starting to change colour. That's because it's almost fully cooked, and guess what? We've done it all the way on the skin. I'm going to season this side of the fish with just a little bit of salt. And then we're going to turn this puppy over. When you turn a piece of fish. The best thing to do is use the rim of the pan so you’re just gently pushing it into the rim and then you let it fall back down. Our fish has crispy skin and is perfectly cooked. Our cauliflower and mushrooms look absolutely wonderful.

This is it. This is how simple it is.

You bring over that cauliflower and mushroom straight onto the plate. I always put it right in the middle of the plate, and then a gorgeous snapper. Take that lovely sauce that we made, and you just drizzle that vinaigrette all over your fish and all around the side of the plate.

Tell you what, this is gonna be delicious. It's a nice tangy flavour for the sauce, a little bit of sweetness from the currents. Here it is my pan-roasted and snapper. I think this dish is the perfect seafood dish when you're entertaining, and I hope you do too. Oh yeah. That is tasty.