Chef/patron Andrew Jones used Ray and Jeff Steadman from Chamberlain and Thelwell at Billingsgate as his fishmongers. The pair were looking for a head chef for their own restaurant, Chamberlain’s, which they’d opened just a stone’s throw from the fish market three years ago this month. It’s mainly a fish and seafood orientated restaurant, but does offer other meat dishes. Andrew was born in Burnham on Crouch and moved to London to work for Claridge’s staying there for 12 and a half years. Here Andrew shares his recipe for a flavoursome, autumnal fish dish.

Ingredients

Serves 4

4x 160g wild halibut steaks with skin off

250g of curly kale

1/2 a butternut squash (peeled and roughly diced)

100ml of double cream

150g of butter (unsalted)

500ml of good beef stock

200ml of merlot

1 shallot (finely chopped)

1 sprig of thyme

40g of Maldon salt

1 orange

75ml of olive oil

Ground white pepper

Red vein sorrel cress (or alternatively chervil)

To prepare

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Finely grate the zest of the orange and mix with the Maldon sea salt and allow to dry. Strip the kale leaf off the stalk and discard the stalk. Cook the kale in boiling salted water until tender before refreshing in iced water, drain and keep for later.

Place the diced squash in a roasting tray, season with salt and pepper and drizzle lightly with olive oil and roast for around eight minutes until soft, this will intensify the flavour of it. Bring cream and 25g of butter to the boil. Add to the squash and cook down further until the squash is breaking apart, before pureeing it in a liquidiser. Return to a clean pan and season with salt and pepper before cooling.

Heat a clean, non-stick pan until it just starts to smoke. Pat the halibut dry on kitchen paper then coat with olive oil and season lightly with salt and white pepper. Place carefully in the pan and leave for about 2-3 minutes until flesh is golden, turn over and cook the other side of the fish for a further 2-3 minutes. Remove the fish from the pan and place on a buttered baking tray.

Add the shallot, thyme and merlot to the pan which the halibut was cooked in and bring to the boil. Stir using a wooden spoon to lift any sediment that has been left from cooking the halibut. When the wine has reduced by half, add the beef stock and reduce again by about half, until the sauce is glossy and a nice syrupy texture. Pass through a fine sieve into a clean, small pan and check the seasoning.

Put the kale on the tray with the halibut and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the oven for 2-3 minutes to finish cooking the fish and to warm the kale. While the halibut is in the oven, reheat the butternut puree and bring the sauce to a light simmer.

To serve, put a large spoon of butternut puree on each plate and place the halibut next to it. Lift the kale onto a piece or kitchen paper to drain any liquid off it before spooning around the fish. Season the fish with the orange salt, before dressing the plate with the sauce around the fish and finish with the red vein sorrel cress sprinkled over the dish and serve.

Get the taste

Chamberlain’s

23-25 Leadenhall Market

London

EC3V 1LR

0207 6488693

www.chamberlainsoflondon.com