This is a very tasty recipe that will look very impressive on the plate. The stuffed plaice fillets with a creamy prawn sauce is a great flavour combination.
About Plaice
Plaice is on of the most popular flat fish in the UK and around Europe. As flat fish it is adapted for living on the sea bed where it feeds on clams, crabs and other shellfish. They tend to feed at night in shallow water, during the day they bury themselves in the sand. It has a distinctive brown skin with bright orange spots, the underside is white. On our counter you will see we sell the white and dark plaice fillets separately. Alternatively you can by a whole fish and we can fillet it for you
Preperation time for this recipe will be about 10-12 minutes. Allow 20 – 25 minutes for the cooking time
Quantities below are to serve four people.
Ingredients For Stuffed Plaice Fillets
3 Large plaice fillets from Walter Purkis & Sons each cut in half lengthways to make 4 long fillets
200g small Prawns or Shrimps
250ml White wine
Handful of fresh Chives, finely chopped
Juice and Zest half a Lemon
50ml double cream
75g Butter, chilled, cut into cubes
Salt and freshly milled Black Pepper
Cooking Method For Stuffed Plaice Fillets
If your plaice still has skin on you may wish to remove it for better presentation. Put the fillet skin-side down onto a chopping board and fix the tail-end holding down with your fingertips. Then using a sharp thin blade (cutting away from your fingers towards the head end) make a small incision down between the flesh and tail. Hold the knife a a slight angle and use a sawing action to cut the flesh from the skin – keep the tail end held tight.
Preheat your oven to 190°C, gas 5
Place the fillets on the work top with the skinned side facing up. Take half of the prawns for stuffing and devide that into an equal portion for each fillet. Place them at the head end.
Carefully roll them up from head to tail. A good tip here is to use a cocktail stick to hold each roll in position. Put each of the stuffed fillets into a baking dish that has been lightly buttered. The should be standing on their ends so that the stuffing does not fall out.
Pour the white wine, lemon juice and zest into the dish.
Cover with some foil and bake for 15-20mins until the fish is firm and opaque. Remove the stuffed rolls from the pan cover with foil and put to one side in a warm place. Pour the cooking liquid from the pan into a small saucepan.
Heat gently and reduce by half then add the cream and bring to a simmer, whisk in cubes of butter. Stir in the remaining prawns and chopped chives.
To serve arrange three stuffed fillets (with any cocktail stick removed) on each plate with some of the prawn sauce poured on top. Some new potatoes and sesonal green vegetables will go very well with this recipe.
This stuffed plaice fillets recipe come from the Fish is the Dish website where you can find this and lots of other fishy recipes.
