For your enjoyment…

Do you feel the same as I do on weekends on or special holidays, or when you have guests over? I’d like to cook something very special, not the usual fare. Then I’m either spoiled for choice or I can’t think of anything at all. If even intensively searching the internet turns out to be fruitless or leafing through piles of cookbooks doesn’t turn up any solution, try our Recipe of the Month!

From the chefs of the Schick Restaurants in Vienna, every month there is a new, seasonal recipe from Austrian-Spanish or Viennese cuisine for you to prepare and enjoy at home! If you don’t want to have to prepare the recipe yourself, you can order the finished dish in comfort at the corresponding Schick Restaurant and indulge all around…

In March 2015 – recipe by Roman Rothmayer – chef of the decorated Restaurant “Das Schick”:

Sole with banana . red curry . Beluga lentils

Ingredients for 4 servings:

1 – 2 banana leaves (depending on size)
4 or 8 filets of sole, according to taste or portion size
300 g beluga lentils
100 g red curry paste, hot or mild (to taste)
2 mini bananas
300 ml banana juice
potato flakes
200 g cous cous
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. butter
toothpicks, as needed

Preparation:

Boil beluga lentils with salt and bay leave until soft.

Place cous cous in a heat-resistant dish. Bring approx. 400 ml water with a spoonful of butter and some salt to a boil. Pour mixture over the cous cous, stir, then allow to cool for approx. 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Bring banana juice to a boil and – a tip for preparing this dish more easily at home – add potato flakes (bind slightly) until a sprayable mixture forms (in the restaurant I use a very thick, somewhat neutral-tasting potato mixture). Allow the mixture to cool. Subsequently fill a piping bag with the mixture.

Cut the banana leaves such that when the sole is folded and placed in the middle of the leaves, the banana leaves still have approx. 5 cm to the left and right of the sole. Briefly blanch the banana leaves, which makes them softer and shapeable.

Fold filet of sole. Spray a stripe of the banana mixture into the banana leaf. Cover the stripe with cous cous. Place the filet of sole on top of the cous cous. Spray more banana mixture on top and again cover it with cous cous. Fold in the leaf to the left and right. Roll up the leaf and fix into place using toothpicks if necessary.

Repeat this procedure for all portions. Depending on preference or desired portion size, you can wrap one or two filets of sole per banana leaf. Subsequently, bake the rolled-up filets in the oven at 170° C for approx. 10 minutes.

Season the beluga lentils with the red curry paste to taste. Slice mini bananas in half and lightly sauté in butter. Arrange approx. 2 spoonfuls of the beluga lentils in a deep dish, place the banana leaf rolls on top, and arrange the sautéed mini bananas decoratively – as in our photo.

We wish you much success!