Lessons my mother taught me
Coles ambassador Courtney Roulston took over the family dinners at a young age, beginning a lifelong passion.
Courtney Roulston's Mum's Snapper Meuniere
Courtney’s lifelong passion for food started with family dinners. To mark Mother’s Day, she shares the recipe for her mum’s delicious snapper.
Serves
4
Prep
10m
Cooking
15m
Ingredients
- 4 skin-on snapper fillets or barramundi portions
- 2 tbs plain flour
- Pinch of sea salt flakes
- 1/4 cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
- Boiled potatoes, to serve
- Wilted baby spinach leaves, to serve
- Chopped flat-leaf parsley, to serve
- Lemon wedges, to serve
Meunière sauce
- 60g butter
- 1 tbs baby capers, rinsed, drained, dried
- 2 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 lemon, zested, juiced
Method
STEP 1
Lightly dust the snapper fillets in flour and sprinkle with sea salt. Heat half the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add half the fish, skin-side down. Cook, gently pressing with a spatula so the entire skin is touching the pan, for 3 mins or until skin is golden and crisp. Turn and cook for 1-2 mins or until fish is just cooked through. Transfer to a plate and cover to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining oil and fish.
STEP 2
To make the meunière sauce, melt the butter in the pan over medium heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the capers and cook for 1-2 mins. Add the parsley, 2 tsp lemon zest and 2 tbs lemon juice and stir to combine.
STEP 3
Divide the fish among serving plates with the potatoes and spinach. Spoon over the meunière sauce and sprinkle with parsley. Serve with lemon wedges.
"Mum never bought us processed food and although I thought we were getting ripped off at the time, I now realise how lucky we were"
Courtney Roulston with mum Janet: “The best thing I’ve learnt from my mum is the joy that fresh food treated simply can bring.”
“My mother taught me many lessons in the kitchen when I was younger. Sometimes she would even instruct me how to cook over the phone.
“I am the youngest of six and both my mother and father worked full-time. Because of this we’d sometimes eat dinner quite late - until I took over cooking the family dinners.
“I started cooking to help take the load off my mum after working a long day in the dress shop she owned with my nan. I’d call mum (on the old round dial phone) when I got home from school and she would instruct me how to cook a roast leg of lamb with all the trimmings… a bit like an old-fashioned Zoom cooking class, I guess!
“I found my love of cooking from a young age by helping cook these dinners (and a bonus was nobody noticed I wasn’t doing my homework!).
“Growing up in a large family meant we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on food, but we always ate very well. Mum never bought us processed food and although I thought we were getting ripped off at the time, I now realise how lucky we were. We’d grow our own veggies and spent the holidays catching fish, prawns and crabs at our holiday shack on the Shoalhaven River, on the NSW South Coast.
“Mum often cooked the fresh fish that we caught just in a pan with butter, parsley and a squeeze of lemon and I still love eating this dish today. You can’t beat simple, un-fussy, real food!
“The best thing I’ve learnt from my mum is the joy that fresh food treated simply can bring.”
Get ahead on your Mother's Day shopping
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