Poached Plaice is a tasty light fish dish with lots of bright flavours from the fresh vegetables and extra zing from the lemon and sun dried tomatoes. Plaice has a fine, moist texture, bright white colour and a subtle but distinctive sweet flavour.

Plaice Fillets

Plaice is common in the waters all around the UK and Europe. It is one of the most popular flat fish for eating in the UK.

Flat fish are adapted for living on the sea bed where they feed on clams, crabs and other similar shellfish. They tend to feed at night in shallow water, during the day they bury themselves in the sand.

On our counter you will see we sell the white and dark plaice fillets separately. Plaice have a distinctive brown skin with bright orange spots and a white underside. Alternatively you can by a whole fish and we can fillet it for you.

Ingredients below are for two people

Ingredients Poached Plaice

2 plaice fillets from Walter Purkis & Sons
vegetable or fish stock
small handful sundried tomatoes
baby asparagus
juice and zest of a lemon
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
large sprig of flat leaved parsley plus a small handful, chopped
salt and pepper for seasoning

Cooking Method For Poached Plaice

Cut the plaice fillets in two lengthways along the line of the spine. Plaice fillets do vary in size so if you have quite a large one the half fillet can be cut again into two further pieces. For presentation purposes a white skin fillet looks better in this dish.

Roll each piece of fillet up with the skin facing inwards and flesh out. For a thicker fillet you may want to use a cocktail stick to hold it in place. It will firm up and stay in position once it becomes hot.

Place the rolls into a sauté pan or saucepan with a lid pour in the stock, add some sprigs of the parsley and poach with the lid on for about 10 minutes.

While the fish is cooking make up the vegetable mixture. First steam some asparagus or sprouting broccoli for a couple of minutes. (you can add/substitute many other vegetables such as green beans or baby corn). Slice them into short even lengths, combine with chopped sundried tomatoes, olive oil, chopped herbs, seasoning and lemon juice.

Serve with the plaice and some of the cooking stock. Garnish with the lemon zest. Serve right away

This poached plaice recipe come from the Fish is the Dish website where you can find this and lots of other fishy recipes.