Did you know macadamia nuts are produced in Tasmania? I didn’t, but I found out when I visted Tasmania and had blue eye trevalla (a local fish) with macadamia butter and broccolini at restaurant Aløft. I really liked the combination, so I decided to make something similar at home. Blue eye trevalla is not available here, but I thought it was pretty similar to cod, and so that is what I used. This dish will work well with any white fish. Halibut or sea bass are also great options, or sea bass prepared sous vide in this manner. The combination of the creamy, salty, and lemony macademias with the crispy broccolini and tender succulent fish is wonderful.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 600 grams (1.3 lbs) cod or other white fish, in 4 portions
• 300 grams (.66 lb) broccolini (called brassica in Australia)
• 100 grams (2/3 cup) macademia nuts
• grated zest of 1/2 lemon
• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• salt and freshly ground white pepper
• olive oil
• clarified butter
• flour for dusting the fish

Instructions

Salt the fish at least an hour in advance, so the salt has the chance to penetrate into the fish.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

To make the macadamia butter, combine the macadamias in a blender with the lemon zest, lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Blend to turn this into macadamia butter, adding warm water as needed to get the right texture. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and freshly ground white pepper. Transfer the macadamia butter into a saucepan to heat it up over low heat, stirring.

Dust the skin side of the fish with flour.

Fry the fish on the skin side only in clarified butter or olive oil over high heat.

Once the skin is golden brown and crispy, transfer to a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Use an instant read thermometer with a probe, and insert it such that the tip of the probe is in the center of one of the pieces of fish.

Bake the fish until it has a core temperature of 50C/122F.

In the meantime, blanch the stalks of the broccolini for 2 minutes. A high narrow pot works best for this, as you want to keep the tops out of the boiling water.

Brush a griddle plan with olive oil and heat it up well. Grill the broccolini until there are nice grill marks on both sides.

Serve the fish on top of some macadamia butter with the broccolini on the side, on preheated plates.

Wine pairing

This works well with a lot of dry white wines, as long as they have enough body to work with the macadamia and lemon butter.