Char with Pea Sprouts and Forest Mushrooms Recipe

Char with Pea Sprouts and Forest Mushrooms Recipe

  • 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 12 ounces mixed fresh flavorful mushrooms (black trumpet, chanterelle, cremini, hedgehog, mousseron, oyster, and portobello), chopped into bite-size pieces
  • Salt and ground pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons chopped shallots
  • ½ tablespoon minced fresh garlic
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup champagne or white wine vinegar
  • 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • Fresh tarragon to yield 1 tablespoon chopped, held whole
  • 4 skin-on Arctic char fillets, about 6 ounces each (cod will work as substitute)
  • 6 cups (about 10 ounces) pea sprouts (if unavailable, substitute chopped spinach or escarole)
  1. In a sauté pan over medium-low heat, warm 3 tablespoons of the oil. Add mushrooms, season, cover pan, and cook 10 minutes. Push mushrooms into a ring around sides of pan and add shallots and garlic to center of pan. Season. Cook, covered, until shallots are translucent, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle pan with flour and stir to coat ingredients. When flour has dissolved, stir in vinegar. Increase heat to high and cook, uncovered, until very little liquid is visible. Add stock and cook until reduced to a medium-bodied sauce, 14 to 17 minutes. Chop 1 tablespoon tarragon, add to mushroom sauce, and simmer 1 minute. Season sauce with salt and pepper and keep warm.
  2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a sauté pan over high heat until very hot. Sprinkle skin side of fillets with salt and pepper. Lay fillets skin side down in oil and sauté until skin is brown and crisp, about 3 minutes. Pat dry the top sides of fillets, season, and flip. Cook on second side 2 to 3 minutes. Remove to plate and keep warm. Pour off oil from pan and clean with a bunched paper towel. Return pan to high heat.
  3. Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to pan. While oil heats, place sprouts or other greens in a large bowl and toss with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Add seasoned shoots to very hot oil and sauté 1 to 2 minutes, until shoots are wilted and slightly charred.
  4. Spoon mushroom sauce over each dish. Layer char fillet on the sauce and scatter pea shoots over entire dish. Serve hot.