Oven baked parmesan and herb coated blue cod

With fennel seed and rock salt potato crush, finished with a vanilla bean white wine sauce.

Vanilla bean white wine sauce
1 Small onion finely diced
1 TBsp Olive oil
100ml white wine
200ml blue milk
50ml cream
1 vanilla pod
2 tsp salt
Cornflour to thicken

Lightly sweat onions in olive oil until fragrant and transparent, add white wine and reduce until there is almost none left. In a separate pot combine the milk, cream and salt. Carefully cut the vanilla pod length ways and scrape all the seeds out, put seeds and pod into the milk/cream mixture (the pod will need to be plucked out later). Bring this mixture to a gentle simmer being careful not to boil it as it can easily split. Once hot make a cornflour slurry (1 TBsp cornflour to 1 TBsp cold water). Carefully whisk in slurry until desired consistency is reached. You may need less or more depending how thick you want your sauce. Once desired consistency is reached add in the onions and reduced wine, pick out the vanilla pod and set sauce aside.

Fennel seed and rock salt potato crush
1 TBsp rock salt
1 TBsp fennel seeds
4 TBsp olive oil
Fresh ground black pepper
16 small cooked gourmet potatoes

You will need to either chop or grind the fennel seeds and rock salt together either with a mortar and pestle or by knife, alternatively put into an empty pepper grinder.
Crush a potato in your hand and press into either a metal ring or large muffin tin with the back of a spoon, sprinkle a pinch of the fennel seed rock salt mixture, ground black pepper and drizzle of olive oil on each potato then repeat this process until all potatoes are used. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 mins.

Parmesan and herb coated blue cod
800g Blue cod (200g per serve)
2 eggs
20g finely grated/shaved parmesan
100ml cream
Salt & pepper
4 TBsp olive oil
150g flour
2 TBsp chopped fresh herbs (coriander, parsley and fennel work well, but you can use whatever you have we recommend staying away from or using small amounts of very strong herbs e.g. rosemary and thyme)

Whisk together the eggs, cream parmesan and herbs with a little salt and pepper. Cut your blue cod into 4 even 200g portions. Carefully roll the cod a couple of pieces at a time in the flour shake off any excess flour and put into egg mixture. Heat a large pan with olive oil and lightly brown each side of each piece of cod and place on a large oven tray ready for baking. Bake at 180°C for 4-6 mins, or until cooked.
Serve on your potato crushes and top with the warmed sauce accompanied with any seasonal vegetables of your choice and some fresh lemon wedges.

Recipe kindly supplied by
Chef Jonathon Kelly
The Kiln, Invercargill