Sea bass with Brussels sprouts and nasturtiums

A few hours before the meal, start making the beurre blanc (the Nantes butter sauce — a great favourite where I live, at the mouth of the Loire).

Peel the shallots and blitz them roughly.

Reduce the white wine with the shallots. If you have a sauce maker, set it for an hour on setting 5… Mind you, mine is a very old one — it may not be like that on the newer models, so use the highest setting ^^. If you don’t have a sauce maker, reduce it in a pan and stop when only about a tablespoon of wine is left. Let it cool completely.

Remove any damaged leaves from the Brussels sprouts. Wash them and cook them in a steam oven for 15 minutes at 100°C (or in a pan of lightly salted boiling water).

Put the sauce-maker bowl back on and set it to 2. If you don’t have a sauce maker, sit the pan you made your reduction in inside a larger pan of hot water (a bain-marie). Either way, gradually work in the pieces of butter.

Cook the fillets of a sea bass (a 1 kg one for 4) in a steam oven at 90°C for 8 minutes (if you have a temperature probe, set it to sound at 54°C). If you don’t have a steam oven, give them a few minutes in a pan with butter. Season them with salt.

Serve them on warm plates (put in the oven at 85°C for about ten minutes), accompanied by the Brussels sprouts and the beurre blanc.

Add a nasturtium flower and a few leaves.