Pan fried red mullet with a fennel, blood orange and caper butter

This dish makes a fantastic lunch or dinner and is perfect served with a potato salad and a bowl of mixed leaves.

This dish is so versatile you can adapt it to your favourite fish. Other recommendations include Ocean trout, Spanish Mackerel, John Dory or Whiting. You can also use ruby navel oranges if you cannot find blood oranges.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1kg red mullet fillets (ask your fish monger to scale and fillet for you)
4 bulbs of baby fennel
4 blood orange
1 bunch curly parsley
5g sea salt flakes
25g baby capers
6 turns of the pepper mill
1 bunch watercress
50g toasted almond
80g salted butter

Method

Lightly score the skin of the red mullet with a sharp knife taking care not to cut through the flesh, set aside at room temperature.
Place the fennel bulbs upright on your chopping board and slice fine leaving the core intact when possible. Chop the parsley fine then add the zest of two blood oranges.
Remove the skin from all the blood oranges and roughly slice into pieces.
Take a large non-stick fry pan and place on a medium-high heat.
Salt and pepper the skin of the red mullet.
Add a small amount of vegetable oil to the pan and place the red mullet skin side down for approximately 4 minutes. Once you have achieved a lovely crispy skin, flip the fish and cook for a further 1 minute. Remove the fish from the pan and rest on some paper towel.
Add your sliced fennel to the same hot pan and cook for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and add your butter, capers, parsley, zest and blood orange.
Place the fish on the plate, spoon over your blood orange and fennel butter. Garnish with toasted almonds and watercress.

Notes

This recipe was developed by Troy Rhoades-Brown from Muse Restaurant, Cafe and Kitchen to celebrate the Hunter Culinary Association’s 6th Annual Food Fight

37 Comments

- - mom93821 said
  - 28 Sep 2019
    9:46 am
The sauce and garnish gives this dish a lift.

- - mom101628 said
  - 17 Apr 2017
    5:04 pm
Lovely recipe – thanks for sharing!

- - mom112217 said
  - 31 Mar 2017
    8:16 am
A lovely Summer fish recipe,it look’s amazing!

- - rovermum said
  - 29 Mar 2017
    4:53 pm
This is a recipe I’d love to try if someone made it for me first! How does that sound?
- rachel1970 replied
  
  30 Mar 2017 , 7:03 am
  oh yum, think I need to make this very soon
- - ella12 said
  - 29 Mar 2017
    2:47 pm
Not one for me but looks very light.

- - mom0211 said
  - 30 Sep 2016
    4:50 pm
Look so tasty!

- - Melissa89 said
  - 29 Jul 2016
    3:45 pm
This looks absolutely delicious

- - rachelvk said
  - 10 May 2016
    2:46 pm
Orange and fennel is such a yummy combination and would be great with fish. I am looking forward to giving this a go.

- - coastalkaryn said
  - 19 Dec 2015
    2:55 pm
looks so yummy xxx

- - mom165081 said
  - 30 Nov 2015
    5:32 pm
Mullett is such an underrated and economical fish! Fantastic to see a fish recipe using this fish. This recipe looks delicious.

- - mom94378 said
  - 21 Nov 2015
    7:42 pm
Grreat way to make red mullet look and taste great.

- - robyn_smithwick said
  - 15 Oct 2015
    7:07 pm
I love fish dishes!

- - mom113055 said
  - 22 Aug 2015
    7:14 pm
pan fried

- - meljware said
  - 05 Aug 2015
    2:06 pm
I’m not a fan of mullet but with all this flavour I might actually enjoy it for once. Thanks for sharing!

- - mom56842 said
  - 31 May 2015
    11:08 pm
How nice for a brunch, a recipe to try out for our next mother’s meeting.

- - mom107723 said
  - 28 May 2015
    6:55 pm
What a great recipe thank you for sharing.

- - meros said
  - 29 Apr 2015
    8:17 am
Looks scrumptious, I can just imagine the blood orange zing to it

- - lisa4 said
  - 27 Apr 2015
    8:55 pm
It looks great but I am now a big fish fan because of the bones.

- - am1979amanda said
  - 25 Apr 2015
    10:44 pm
Yummy thanks for the share will try

- - robyn_smithwick said
  - 25 Apr 2015
    7:42 pm
How delectable this is! What do Aussies call mullet? Could you use a different fish like whiting or schnapper?