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 February 2018 – recipe by Felix Albiez – chef of the decorated Restaurant “Das Schick”:

Skrei (winter codfish)
Cauliflower . Sepia . Calamari . Passepierre

Ingredients for 6 servings:

1 Skrei – winter codfish, approx. 2 kg
300 g calamari
2 pieces of cauliflower
100 g passepierre
50 ml sepia coloring
100 ml olive oil, cold-pressed
20 coriander seeds
10 fennel seeds
3 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
50 ml Noilly Prat vermouth
1 lime
1 clove of garlic
1 twig of thyme

Preparation:

Wash, filet and debone the Skrei (Atlantic codfish), and slice it into pieces of approximately 150–180 g each. Clean the calamari (see this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7VIZCezk14) and cut it into fine rings.

For the sepia sauce, wash the fish carcasses, place them in a pot and cover with 1/2 liter of cold water. Add coriander seeds, fennel seeds, bay leaves and peppercorns and simmer slowly. After 45 minutes, strain the mixture through a fine sieve, subsequently allowing the fish stock to boil down further until only 100 ml or so remains. Next, add the sepia coloring, 50 ml of Noilly Prat vermouth and the juice from one lime. Reduce further, until the fish stock reaches a viscid consistency. Season to taste with a bit of salt.

Clean the cauliflower, cut it into small flowerets and boil the flowerets in salt water until soft. Lightly sauté the flowerets in a bit of olive oil together with the passepierre.

Lightly salt the codfish filets on both sides. Sauté the filets on their skin on medium heat until the skin turns nice and crisp. Turn over the fish and add a crushed clove of garlic and a twig of thyme. Slightly reduce the heat and continue to sauté until the fish turns glassy. Sear the calamari rings and heads on high heat, remove from the pan and season with salt.

Arrange in an appetizing way – like in our photo, for instance – and… enjoy!

Bon appétit!