We are always thrilled to see chefs being inspired by our tableware and sharing their best creations with us. While we wait for the next time we can all sit around in a beautiful restaurant, nothing stops us from recreating the best fine dining experience at home. With a little help from our friend Asimakis Chianotis, chef at the wonderful Pied à Terre, we travelled to Greece to get a taste of his latest tabletop magic.
Explore Asimakis' menu for your Sunday culinary adventure: grilled sea bass, blue fin tuna ceviche and a delicious homemade strawberry millefeuille with lemon verbena to finish with.
Tableware featured, designed by Bodo Sperlein for Nikko Ceramics: Landscape Plate, Blossom Deep Plate and Sensu Creamer, Sensu Plate.
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Grilled sea bass filled with monks beard, tomatoes garlic and onions
- 1 seabass around ½kg, cleaned with guts, gilts and scales removed
- 1 tomato, sliced
- ½ of an onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 50g monk’s beard
- 50ml olive oil
- 10g salt
- Fresh peppers
- Thick butcher’s twine
- Freshly ground black pepper
Have your fire prepared and make sure a thick layer of burned charcoal is ready. Start by rubbing the olive oil all over the fish and in the belly, then evenly salt and pepper the fish all over. Add the tomato, monk’s beard, garlic and onion into the belly, and with a knife make small incisions across the top of the cuts to the belly on each side. Carefully – and not too tightly – tie a knot in the bottom of the butcher’s twine, and ‘sew’ the belly together through the holes.
Grill the fish over a medium heat for 6 minutes on each side, or until you have nice bubbly, crispy skin and serve.
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Blue fin tuna ceviche with Greek flavours
- 1 blue fin tuna, very fresh, filleted with the skin on
- 1 spicy pepper cut in half, seeds discarded and finely sliced
- 100ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 8-10 smoked almonds
- 20g pickled rock samphire
- ¼ a bunch finely of fennel tops, chopped
- Zest of one lime
- Fleur de sel, for seasoning
- Freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
For the dressing:
- Juice of one lime
- 1 tomato, cut into quarters and the inside (not the flesh or skin) diced
- 20ml olive oil
-1g salt
Take the head off and fillet the fish. Cut the two fillets in half lengthways, so that you can see the bloodline. With a small knife, discard the bloodline and make sure there are no bones on the belly of the fish, then use your fingers to double check that there is no bone left anywhere.
Fill a bowl with ice and water and dip the fillets in and out of it, so that any bacteria or residue left from the filleting is cleaned. Take a cloth and dry the fish thoroughly and carefully, then place the fillets on a chopping board.
Using a very sharp knife, slice the fish as thinly as possible, keeping it in whole pieces, and place it onto the serving plate (which should be very cold), so that that every slice overlaps the next.
Now is the most important step: making the ceviche correctly. Drizzle the olive oil on top of the fish and, using your fingers, make sure each side is fully glazed – very important, because when you add the lime and the salt you want the fish to stay translucent and not instantly cure and turn white. Next, evenly spread the shallots around and then add the fleur de sel and black pepper.
Add the lime zest, then the sliced spicy peppers, fennel tops, smoked almonds and last the rock samphire. Using a creamer, mix the diced tomato with the lime juice, olive oil and salt. Mix well, pour the dressing around the dish, and serve.
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Homemade strawberry millefeuille with lemon verbena
Puff pastry:
Roll the puff pastry thinly with a rolling pin, dusting it with icing sugar to make it slightly sweeter, then place it between parchment paper. Bake it in the oven on a tray with something heavy on top, so it will not puff or stick together, at 180 degrees for 15-20mins, or until is golden brown. When it’s cooked and still very hot, cut the puff pastry sheet with a very sharp knife making pieces that are 6cm wide and 12cm long.
Crème patisserie:
- 250g milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 45g sugar
- 27g corn flour
- ½ stick of vanilla
- 25g cold butter, diced
- 4 strawberries, sliced
- 4 strawberries, finely chopped
- A few tops of lemon verbena
Place the milk and vanilla seeds into a pan and bring to the boil, then put aside. Whisk the eggs and sugar vigorously until they're pale and foamy, then add the corn flour and mix with a spatula. Pour the hot milk in slowly while whisking it and then put the mix back into the pot and simmer under low heat until it becomes very thick. Mix in the cold butter, which will make it shiny. Cool it down in the fridge in a container covered with clingfilm until it’s around 4 degrees, then whip the mixture with a whisk and place it in a piping bag.
Plating:
Place the first piece of puff pastry exactly in the middle of the plate, pipe two rows of the mixture on top lengthways, then add a layer of strawberry slices. Position another piece puff pastry on top and repeat the process.
On the top pastry piece, use a fine sieve to dust the top with icing sugar and place it carefully on top of the dessert.
With a small spoon, position the finely chopped strawberries in a perfect circle on the plate, add a few lemon verbena leaves around it. Serve and enjoy!
