#TnlTasteOfTheWorld With Chef Laurie Gear: Seabream With British Spring Vegetables, Crisp Garlic & A Fennel Salad

When stepping out of the cosy, and safe space of your home is not an option anymore, dreams of exploring the world brew up within you. Add in a drizzle of virtual travel and a splattering of gourmet food, and you’ve got what we call #TNLTasteOfTheWorld. Throughout the series, we’ll be getting in touch with chefs from around the world to recreate their signature dishes for you to try at home. After all, who said one needs to leave the house to embark on a culinary trail? Recipe by Chef Laurie Gear

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A strong sense of family bonding and influences defines Chef Laurie Gear, the chef and co-owner of the Michelin-starred Artichoke in Amersham, England. Born into a food-loving household – father, a baker; mother, a cook – Chef Gear clamoured his role to the top by adorning various roles. At 14, he ran the catering for a local golf course in his hometown, moved onto to graduate in a catering course, accompanied Chef Leo Featherstone at The Mariner’s Hotel, and eventually landed at The Combe Hotel where he met his wife Jacqueline. Since then, the married duo has been dishing out inventive and refined modern British cuisines together at Artichoke, ensuring each plate is doused with seasonality and love.

For this episode of #TnlTasteOfTheWorld, Chef Gear cooks for us seabream with British spring vegetables, crisp garlic and a fennel salad – inspired by England’s coastal town, and his home town – Lyme Regis.

Ingredients

• 2 medium seabream fillets
• 6 potatoes
• 1 fennel bulb
• 1 large lemon
• 1 Romano pepper
• 1 bunch of medium-sized asparagus
• 5 basil leaves
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 500-millilitre fish/vegetable stock
• Dash of vegetable oil
• Garlic

Recipe

• In a heavy-bottom pan, add halved new potatoes, fennel cut into wedges, asparagus, and peppers that have been roasted in the oven with olive oil and salt.
• Add the remaining vegetable trimmings along with white wine in another heavy-bottom pan along with water and let it simmer for 30 to 40 minutes to create a vegetable stock.
• In another pan, add thinly sliced garlic to hot olive oil. Cook till garlic is crisp.
• Add this oil to the pan with cut vegetables. Next, shift this pan to an oven preheated at 180-190 degrees celsius.
• Meanwhile, take some fennel and shave it finely using a potato peeler for the fennel salad.
• Next, pour the olive oil on top of the fennel, sprinkle a pinch of salt over it, squeeze some lemon juice, and toss it together with fennel tops.
• Take out the pan from the oven and add hand-torn basil leaves to it. Put it back in the oven to cook further.
• While the vegetables cook, take another pan on high heat and drizzle some olive oil on it. Next, gently press down the filleted fish and cook on both sides till it turns golden.

Plating

• In a plate, add the vegetables from the oven and drizzle it with the residual oils.
• Place the cooked fish fillet over these vegetables, and garnish it with the fennel salad.
• Scatter a few cloves of the crispy garlic on top of the fish to finish the dish.

Related: #TNLTasteOfTheWorld With Chef Raymond Wong: Learn How To Make Korean Style Crispy Fried Chicken