Cheese and Herb Crusted Coley Fillet with Dill Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli

Cheese and Herb Crusted Coley Fillet with Dill Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli

This is a great coley recipe to make for all the family, as the fairly small coley fillets will all fit in one large frying pan. Note that the relevant photos to the right show only one fillet in a small pan, simply in order to provide the best illustration.

Ingredients for Four People

4 small coley fillets of even thickness (skin on)
4 large potatoes
1 large head of broccoli
1 outside slice of bread
2oz cheddar cheese
¼ red bell pepper
3 or 4 large basil leaves
1 tsp dried dill
1oz butter
Salt and pepper

Sunflower oil for frying

2 tbsp flour for dusting coley fillets

Method

Peel the potatoes, chop them in to chunks and add to a pot of cold, lightly salted water. Put the pot on a high heat until the water begins to boil, reduce the heat to achieve a simmer and contimue to simmer for thirty minutes.

Grate/shred the bread and the cheese and add them to a bowl. Finely dice the red bell pepper, roughly chop or tear the basil leaves and put them in the bowl. Season with salt and pepper and stir well.

When the potatoes have been boiling for twenty minutes, the broccoli should be broken in to florets and added to a pan of boiling, lightly salted water. It will take eight to ten minutes to cook.

Put your overhead grill on to preheat to maximum.

A couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil should be added to a large frying pan and brought up to a fairly high heat. The flour should be spread on a dinner plate and seasoned with salt and pepper. The coley fillets should be patted in the flour on the skin side only and added to the frying pan. They should be seasoned with salt on the flesh side and fried on a moderate to high heat for four minutes. The heat should then be reduced and the fillets turned to fry on the flesh side for two minutes.

The pan should now be removed from the heat. Working as quickly as possible (you will get faster with experience!) remove the skin from the fillets, using a blunt edged knife for assistance, if necessary. The skin should be beautifully crisp and peel off fairly easily. The cheese and herb topping should now be spread over the fillets and by far the easiest way to do this is by hand. Don't worry about a little spillage in the pan - it will not affect plate presentation. Put the pan under the hot grill for a couple of minutes while you finish preparing the potatoes and broccoli.

Drain the potatoes through a colander and return them to the pot. Add the butter and the dill and mash. Using an ice cream scoop to plate the mash is optional. Drain the broccoli and plate that also before finally removing the frying pan from under the grill (with an oven protecting glove!) and carefully add the coley fillets to the plate.