Breaded Red Snapper with Shrimp, Fennel and Oranges

By norsegal8

The bread in this dish is really a paper-thin, crispy crust that adheres to each portion of fish. A good trick is to roll the bread slices through a pasta machine to get them as thin as possible. My idea is that with each bite you'll have the sensation of the crispy bread, the lucious fish with the velvety hollandaise, and the crunchy, tangy salad on top.

Ingredients

• 1 bulb fennel
• 4 oranges
• 12 jumbo shrimp, boiled, peeled and halved lengthwise
• 1/4 cup basic lemon vinaigrette
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 pinch sugar
• salt
• pepper
• 6 slices white bread, crusts removed
• leaves from 1 sprig fresh tarragon, minced
• 6 6-ounce skinless red snapper filets
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup basic citrus hollandaise
• 1 handful fresh chives, chopped,
• samll sprigs from 1 branch fresh dill
• petals from 2 chive blossoms

Preparation

Step 1

1. For the salad, slice the fennel as thinly as possible using a mandoline or very sharp knife. Put the fennel into a medium bowl.

2. Using a sharp knife, prepare the oranges by first cutting off the top and the bottom of each. Then stand the orange on one end and slice off the peel and white pith from top to bottom, cutting around the entire orange, removing as much peel as possible and leaving as much fresh as you can.

3. Working over the bowl with the fennel, cut out each segment of orange from between the membranes on each side. Squeeze any remaining juice left from the pulp into the same bowl. Discard the pulp.

4. Add the shrimp, Lemon Vinaigrette, cayenne pepper and sugar to the fennel and orange sections and season with salt and pepper. Toss well and set the salad aside.

5. Using a pasta machine or rolling pin, flatten each slice of bread to a thickness of 1/8-to 1/16-of an inch. Lay the bread out on a work surface and sprinkle each slice with the minced tarragon.

6. Season the fish with salt and pepper and place each filet on top of one of the slices of bread. Using a sharp knife, cut around the perimeter of the fish so that the bread perfectly matches the dimensions of the filet.

7. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over moderate heat. Place the pieces of prepared fish in the skillet, bread side down, and cook until the bread is golden brown, about 4 minutes. Carefuuly turn the filets over and cook the fish until it is lightly browned and cooked through, 3-4 minutes longer.

8. On each of 6 plates, make a pool of a couple of tablesspoons of Citrus Hollandaise and place one of the "breaded" filets on top, bread side up. Spoon some of the fennel-orange salad over each fish filet and scatter some of the chives, dill and chive blossoms on top.