Besugo al Horno

OK, well today's effort is from Fish by Sophie Grigson and some other guy.
I'll be honest, this is my mum's book and I've never been tempted to expand our library of Sophie Grigson cook books. This one has been much used and is easy to follow, but I'm just not a fan of her style. The prevailing memory I have of the last reruns of her cooking show (the one with loads of pictures of her and her famous mother in the opening credits to remind you of her gastronomic provenance) is of a recipe of a sandwich spread that called for a stick of butter blended with some tuna and a few capers, I think, and spread into an entire loaf of bread. Or maybe I'm making that up. And I think I also remember some toyboy lurking around in some of the episodes, you know, to help her cook wink wink. That's not really fair, the dubious recipe and pornographic innuendo is pretty mild stuff by Nigella's standards...

Anyway, the dish is Besugo al Horno, in the little intro to the recipe Grigson says that this is the thing to eat on Christmas Eve in Spain. I asked the boyfriend and he told me that he had never heard of it - but maybe it's a region thing.

The ingredients list called for one Sea Bream and one big potatoe, I had to make 4 fish and 'somebody' bought me baby potatoes but you know, that's not really an inconvenience for an experienced chef ;)

I've got pretty low-rent, loser palate so I'm not a big fan of saffron, i think it tastes dusty. But I'll play along with this little game in order to capture that authentic Spanish flava. Bish bash bosh and it goes in the oven.

OK, I'm not sure if I should blame Soph or my oven, but after 4o minutes the potato slices on top are still hard and solid and the lower layer has fried in the olive oil that has pooled to the bottom of the tray. By the way, it's now almost 10pm so I make the executive decision to throw the fish on top and cross my fingers.

You know when you're cooking for others which is stressfull in itself, and everyone is sober and you're really hungry and you sort of start thinking 'fuck it, I'll just eat it' but then you have to consider that others won't necessarily turn a blind eye to the raw potatoes and lukewarm fish. So finaly I let it ferment under the grill for another 20 minutes and then decided to end the ordeal.

Result: The Sea Bream is delicious, but considering that I only put salt, pepper and lemon juice on it I am inclined to believe that's down to the quality of the fish rather than the technique. I guess I'm not really selling this thing, it was ok. The potats were a little greasy but cooked all the way though and if it wasn't for the wierd orange color they turned you wouldn't even notice the saffron.The point is that I know that fresh fish tastes best when it's cooked in a simple way, and I appreciate only having to mess about with one dish that everything is cooked in, but I like having my horizons broadened, you get me?

The overwhelming opinion is - Meh...