Barramundi fillets with shattered-crisp skin and flesh that flakes into big, pearly pieces underneath. Crisp skin comes down to three things: dry skin, a properly hot pan, and leaving the fish alone once it’s down. The sauce is nothing more than butter cooked until it turns golden and smells nutty, then sharpened with lemon. Buy your barramundi from the Queen Victoria Market seafood hall, delivered to your door or via Click & Collect!
Serves 4. Cooking for 2? Just halve the ingredients.
Ingredients
Fish
- 4 x 180g barramundi fillets, skin on and pin-boned
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1½ teaspoons cooking salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Lemon butter sauce
- 120g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- Salt and finely ground pepper
To serve
- Chopped flat-leaf parsley
- Lemon wedges
Method
- Pat the skin completely dry with paper towel. If you have time, leave the fillets uncovered in the fridge, skin side up, for an hour. Dry skin is the single biggest factor in whether it crisps.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C if your fillets are thicker than about 2.5cm.
- For thick fillets, score the skin with 4cm slashes about 1cm apart and 2–3mm deep. This stops the fillet curling up off the pan as the skin tightens.
- Season the skin and flesh with salt and pepper just before cooking. Salting early draws moisture back to the surface, which is the opposite of what you want.
- Heat the oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat until you see the first wisps of smoke.
- Lay the fillets in skin side down and press gently for 10 seconds so the skin makes full contact with the pan.
- Cook skin side down for 2–3 minutes, until golden and crisp. Don’t move them, don’t peek. Lifting the fish breaks the crust that’s forming.
- For thick fillets, transfer the pan to the oven for 10 minutes, still skin side down, until the internal temperature reaches 55°C. For thin fillets, flip and finish in the pan.
- Rest skin side up on a rack for 3 minutes. On a plate, the skin steams and softens. On a rack, it stays crisp.
- For the sauce, melt the butter in a light-coloured saucepan over medium heat and keep whisking. A pale pan lets you see the colour change. After about 3 minutes, it will turn golden and smell nutty, so pour it out immediately. It goes from brown to burnt in seconds.
- Stir in the lemon juice and season to taste.
- Serve the fillets skin side up, drizzled with the sauce, with parsley and lemon wedges.
Adapted from RecipeTin Eats
