© Pierre Lucet Penato
Horse mackerel, cucumber water, capers
To prepare his chichards, chef Matan Zaken of Parisian restaurant Nhome first pickles them before marinating them in a blend of olive and grapeseed oils and yuzu and lime juice.
This recipe by Matan Zaken, chef at Nhome restaurant in Paris, is from the 2024 edition ofBook 109: The new blood of French gastronomy. Discover the ingredients and preparation steps to make it a breeze.
- Serves 8
- Preparation time: 20 min
- Cooking time: 5 min
- Resting time: 4 h
Ingredients forhorse mackerel and cucumber water
- 3 medium-sized horsemackerel
For the dry brine
- 500 g fine salt
- 250 g brown sugar
- Zest of 2 lemons
For the yuzu marinade
- olive oil
- Grape seed oil
- Yuzu juice
- Zest and juice of 1 lime
For the cucumber water
- 1 cucumber
- Dashi broth
- Rice vinegar
For the horseradish cream
- 40 cl raw cream
- 5 g freshly grated horseradish
- Zest of 1 lime
- salt and pepper
For the dressing
- 1 Meyer lemon (a cross between a yellow lemon and a mandarin or orange)
- 1 caviar lemon
- Cucumber flowers
- A few bronze fennel sprigs
- Caper leaves
Steps for thehorse mackerel and cucumber water
- Prepare the horse mackerel: remove the fillets, keeping the skin on. Remove the bones (or ask your fishmonger).
- Prepare the dry brine by mixing salt, sugar and lemon zest. Brine the horse mackerel fillets for 4 hours, gravlax-style. Rinse fillets in clean water, then dry on absorbent paper.
- Mix all ingredients to make the yuzu marinade. Cut each fillet into 4 portions. Brush the horse mackerel with the yuzu marinade, then flashlight the skin to char.
- Prepare the cucumber water: wash the cucumber. Cut into cubes, keeping the skin and removing the seeds. Centrifuge, adding a pinch of ascorbic acid to preserve the color. Recover the water and strain through a sieve to extract translucent water, then add a pinch of salt, dashi broth and rice vinegar.
- Make the horseradish cream: mix the raw cream with the grated horseradish, lime zest, salt and pepper.
- To serve: place 3 pieces of horse mackerel in a soup plate. Add a cucumber flower, a Meyer lemon wedge, a caviar lemon wedge, bronze fennel and a caper leaf to each piece of horse mackerel. Finally, pour over the cucumber water before serving.
Forfurther information:
- Nhome, 41 rue de Montpensier, 75001 Paris 1
- 13.5/20 in the Livre des 109
- Read Gault&Millau's review of Nhome
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