Simon Rhodes from Lobsterpot Fishmongers, Wood Street Food Hall

LAST week saw the arrival of an old favourite, which is now on the endangered list, huss.

This fish is more commonly known as the dogfish, or smoothhound, and some of you might even know it far better by its popularised London name of rock salmon. Remember rock and chips?

This versatile fish has a single bone/cartilage going through the middle and once prepared has a firm pink flesh.

It can be cut into steaks, like hake, or filleted leaving a meaty flesh which holds firm making it ideal for curries, stews and tagines.

Huss with pancetta in a tomato sherry sauce

  • First wrap your fillets of huss (or on the bone if you prefer) in pancetta, which is a cured Italian meat with black pepper and occasional spices, and set aside.

If you can’t get pancetta use prosciutto or even smoked bacon will do.

  • Next prepare the sauce by skinning and deseeding several tomatoes.
  • Gently fry the fish so as not to burn the pancetta for about 5 minutes then place the fish in a casserole dish in a pre-heated oven for another ten minutes at 180C.
  • Add a good glug of olive oil into a frying pan and sweat off some fine chopped onions, and several cloves of garlic. Now add the tomatoes and a little water and cook until the tomatoes start to break up.
  • Next add about a glass of sherry into the sauce and flambé the sherry. This will burn off the alcohol. If you don’t wish to flambé then cook the sauce a little longer. At this point add a tspn of tomato purée just to give the sauce a bit of body and season to taste. It might require a little sugar or lemon juice to bring the flavours together.
  • Remove the fish from the oven and spoon over the sauce.

Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and maybe even some capers or even some halved black olives.

Huss tagine z First make the sauce for the tagine by sweating some cloves of garlic and diced onions in some olive oil. Next add about 4 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp of Ras el Hanout, 2 tsp paprika and a stick of cinnamon and stir in for about a minute to cook the spices.

  • Next add 500ml of fish stock and some fresh tomatoes or a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 10 minutes until the sauce has reduced. Now season to taste.
  • Once the sauce has reduced add in the huss, either filleted or cut into steaks. Now cover the dish and place in the oven for a further 10 minutes until the fish is just cooked. If the sauce is a bit dry add some more water at any stage.
  • Now serve with some roasted or grilled lemon slices and some fresh coriander.