MELON WITH RAW CAPE BREAM

By chef Bertus Basson of Overture 

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS

1 sweet melon

1 Cape Bream from Fish With A Story by ABALOBI

garlic cloves

milk

salt, to season

Gremolata oil

100 ml vegetable oil

100 g parsley

zest of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic

Garlic emulsion

½ clove garlic

100 ml milk

300 ml vegetable oil

salt, to season

METHOD

1. Peel a sweet melon with a sharp knife. Cut the melon in half, scoop out the pips and slice very thinly.
2. For the Cape Bream, only use the freshest Fish With A Story sourced from ABALOBI. Fillet the bream, cut out the belly and pin bone, then carefully take the skin off the fish. Now it’s time to slice the bream as thinly as possible.
3. For the garlic chips, peel garlic and slice them as thinly as possible with a sharp knife or mandoline.
4. Soak the garlic in milk overnight to reduce the bitterness. Strain off the liquid and fry at 150°C until golden brown and crispy. Season when hot with salt.

Gremolata oil

1. Heat up vegetable oil to 75°C.
2. Add parsley, lemon zest and garlic to the hot oil and blend with a hand blender, keeping the oil at 75°C for 10 minutes. For the best result, we infuse the oil over night.
3. Strain it off the next morning with a fine sieve. The result should be a dark green flavourful oil. 

Garlic emulsion

1. In a hand blender jug, add clove of garlic and milk. Give that a pulse with your hand blender, now slowly add vegetable oil to the milk while constantly blending, go slowly otherwise it will split. The mixture will become smooth, glossy and thick, like mayonnaise.  
2. Season with salt.

Now drive to your local beach and harvest fresh dune spinach. Please wash properly as it can be very sandy. Store in an airtight container.

PLATING

1. Lay down the melon slices first.
2. In between the melon place your sustainable and traceable Cape Bream slices.
3. Add a few dollops of garlic emulsion on top of the melon.
4. Place about 5 garlic chips on top (they are very strong; a little goes a long way).
5. Now to add more flavour to the dish using fresh herbs we are going to place the dune spinach, fresh mint, fresh basil in between the melon and fish.
6. Thinly slice a jalapeno chilli, seeds and all and use about five slices on the fish.
7. Now dress the whole dish with the gremolata oil and finish with fresh lime juice, zest and season with salt.