Baked Zander Fillet with Cheese and Cream: Oven Recipe
I honestly don't know why, but around here any bake made of anything at all, as long as it has been sprinkled with cheese first, earns the honorary title “French-style”. Countless recipes for meat, fish, vegetables, chicken, mushrooms, and all of them “French-style”. Even zander fillet with cheese gets passed off as a French dish.
I have to admit that, leafing through cookbooks on classic and modern French cooking, I never came across a recipe like the one we are used to. French cuisine took shape over centuries, and, interestingly, its regional (peasant) and aristocratic (refined) branches developed at the same time yet barely crossed paths. Cheese is certainly used widely in cooking there, given that France has more than 400 kinds of it. A French-style dinner usually includes cheese. I remember a huge platter woven from willow shoots with small wheels of cheese laid out on it. And a bottle of Burgundy.
Cheese is a food made from milk by fermenting and curdling it with the help of various bacteria and enzymes. The books say cheese is usually pale yellow. But walk into a shop and you get the impression that all cheeses are the same colour and differ only in their plastic wrap and the size of the holes. And when melted they turn into a greasy slop with lumps floating in it.
Be that as it may, baking dishes under grated cheese is very common and, let's be honest, very tasty. The only question is the quality of the cheese.
Zander fillet under cheese is a lovely, tasty dish, even if it isn't French. It works well as a main course or a starter, and even cold it makes a fine sandwich to take to work. I deliberately left out potatoes, tomatoes and mayonnaise: I think they have no place here. All the “fish with cheese” recipes look alike, yet the dishes turn out different.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Zander (fillet) 0.5 kg
- Hard cheese 150 g
- Red bell pepper 1
- Onion 2
- Sour cream 0.5 cup
- Cream, 15% 50 ml
- Dill 5-6 sprigs
- Olive oil to taste
- Seasonings: salt, pepper, nutmeg, dried herbs to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- To make baked zander fillet with cheese, you first have to get hold of a zander, one way or another (catch it, buy it, receive it as a gift, etc.). Then scale it and remove the fins, head and tail. Cut the fillets off the skin and remove all the bones. This is important.
- Cut the zander fillet crosswise into pieces 4–5 cm wide.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with a little nutmeg (freshly grated, of course). Add 1 tbsp of olive oil. Leave the fillet for 15–20 minutes.
- While the zander fillet is marinating, peel the onion and slice it into thin strips. Seed the red bell pepper and cut it into fairly large slices. Pour 2 tbsp of olive oil into a frying pan and fry the onion and pepper over the lowest heat until soft. It's even worth braising them a little under a lid until the onion starts to turn golden.
- Grease a baking dish with olive oil and lay the pieces of zander fillet in it in a single layer. An important point: the pieces should lie flesh side up, with the side where the skin was facing down. Sprinkle the zander fillet with a mix of fragrant dried herbs such as oregano, basil, mint and sage, as you like. The herbs give the dish a special delicate aroma.
- Spread the fried onion and pepper over the zander fillet in an even layer.
- In a separate small bowl, combine the sour cream, cream and finely chopped dill. Mix thoroughly with a fork to get a sauce of medium thickness.
- Pour the sauce over the zander fillet in the dish, spreading it evenly so that no gaps are left.
- Put the dish of fish into an oven preheated to 200 °C and bake. The baking time varies a lot, but count 15 minutes from the moment the sour cream sauce starts to bubble.
- Then take the dish out of the oven and sprinkle it with finely grated hard cheese.
- Return the dish with the zander fillet and cheese to the oven and bake until the cheese melts and the fish starts to brown. If the cheese is good, it won't turn runny but will bake into a firm crust with a pleasant golden colour.
- Baked zander fillet with cheese is an amazing dish. You can eat it hot or warm. But best of all is to let it cool to room temperature and lay the pieces on very fresh bread. That makes superb sandwiches.
| Yield: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 128 |
| Prep time: | 30 mins |
| Cook time: | 60 mins |
| Total time: | 1 h 30 mins |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.7
(6)
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