Zander filet and a walk in the Nature Reserve

I was up and about bright and early on Saturday morning, I had popped into the market to pick up a chicken that I had ordered on Friday from one of my neighbour (she has chickens and geese), I also picked up some fruit and veg, while passng the fish stall, I noticed that the fishwife had some nice zander filets about 350g, ahem I thought a nice lunch if I ever saw one. I also bought a handful of brown shrimps in their shells.

Off I jolly well went out into the fields, woods and wet lands, doing a bit of wild life watching, ending up in Rietberg (you remember,Karneval), this has a wonderful area of wet lands, these are the reclaimed fish ponds that belong to the Reitberg stud. The ponds where laid down when the Rietberg schloss occupied the grounds now owned by the stud. The Nature Reserve covers an area of many square Acres and is full of swimming, wading and diving water fowl, along with the small rodents, voles, moles, shrews etc that attract owls, hawks and falcons, the reed beds are full of warblers, tits and many other seed feeding birds and the surrounding hedgerows abound with finches eating their way through the last of the Autumn berries. I shall be writing up a page on this wonderful wild life area. It even has a herd of moufflon in the area, mmmm now that is a thought moufflon and chips.

It was a warm morning, in fact the end of the Autumn has turned out warmer than it was for much of what passed for a summer this year!

I headed for home having decided to return early on Sunday morning to catch the geese as they left to go to their feeding grounds, putting on the last of their fat prior to migrating further South.

Zander with brown shrimps in a shrimp sauce.

1 Zander filet (350g)

seasoned flour for dusting

2 table spoons of olive oil

50g of butter

Handful of shell on brown shrimps (peel, save the shells and heads for the sauce)

Shrimp sauce made from the shells and heads of the shrimps boiled in a little stock with a bit of onion, leek, orange peel and a teaspoon of tomato puree. Boil and pour through a fine sieve.

Chop a shallot, mushroom and speck, soften in a little oil, add the shrimp stock and reduce ( you can thicken with a bit of beurre manier) add the peeled shrimps.

Dust the zander filet in the seasoned flour (flour/salt/pepper), heat the oil in the frying pan when hot add the butter when it foams,

add the Zander filet and cook on one side until golden brown,

turn and quickly cook (the inside of the filet should still be opaque) put onto a warmed plate,

spoon over the shrimp sauce.

This was a very nice light lunch. You can serve it with a salad or a few fried potatoes to make a more substantial main meal. I just ate it alone with some crusty bread and a glass of white wine.