Seafood thermidor recipe

This recipe is a classic from The Seafood Restaurant, and one that Rick and Jack included in their top 50 from the last five decades of the restaurant to include in our 50th Anniversary cookbook (signed copies are available here).

“It would not be exaggerating to say that the success of our restaurant in our first ten years was due to this dish, which seemed to appeal to almost everyone. It had lots of different seafood in it, it was robustly flavoured. I think it is a thoroughly delightful dish, even though I have given up serving it in the restaurant – mainly through boredom, but also because it is not a all fashionable at present. I shall revive it one day but until then here is the recipe for you to try.” – Rick

Ingredients for Rick’s seafood thermidor recipe

SERVES 4

• 120 g onion, finely chopped
• 60 g unsalted butter
• 90 ml dry white wine
• 300 ml fish stock
• 90 g fresh button mushrooms
• 600 ml velouté
• 120 ml double cream
• 180 g skinned lemon sole fillet
• 180 g skinned monkfish fillet
• 4 large scallops
• 120 g shelled North Atlantic prawns
• 1 tablespoon Colman’s English mustard powder, made up with a little water
• Juice of a quarter lemon
• 90 g grated cheese
• 30 g breadcrumbs
• Pinch of cayenne pepper

How to make Rick’s seafood thermidor

1. Turn on your overhead grill.

2. Soften the onion in the butter and pour in the white wine. Reduce a little, then add the fish stock and 1 oz (30 g) of the mushrooms. Simmer for 10 minutes, then reduce the volume by two thirds by rapid boiling.

3. Heat the velouté carefully and add the reduction to it (there is no need to strain this). Stir in the cream and leave simmering on a very low heat while you prepare the fish.

4. Cut the lemon sole and monkfish into ½ inch (1.2 cm) pieces. Slice each scallop into three. Put all the fish into a large shallow gratin dish.

5. Sprinkle the rest of the mushrooms on top and brush with melted butter.

6. Season with salt and place under the grill. Remove when the fish has turned white but is still a little underdone (it will cook more when you finish the dish by gratinating it under the grill).

7. Now add the prawns to the rest of the fish.

8. Add the mustard and lemon juice to the sauce and taste it; it should be slightly hot with mustard but not overpoweringly so. Pour the sauce over the fish and mushrooms.

9. Mix the grated cheese with the breadcrumbs, the cayenne pepper and a couple of twists of the black pepper mill and sprinkle over. Gratinate under the grill to a nice golden brown.

Happy cooking

Recipe from Rick Stein’s Fresh from the Sea, 1996, BBC Books