You need to serve this dish on a bed of rösti. This is dead easy if you buy it in a vacuum pack – follow this link to find out all about that, and for the recipe. The vacuum packs serve two to three so just two packs would be enough for six – you’ll need a big frying pan and don’t worry about turning in one piece.

You can use sole but a very good alternative if you are well-organised (you may need to order it) and flush is turbot. It’s not a flatfish however. If you want flatfish then the Dover sole is the most aristocratic of all, it beats of course the humble dab, but also the halibut. Dover sole is in season from January to March – avoid buying fresh Dover sole in April to June when the fish is spawning.

Once you have marinated the peppers, which you can do ahead of time, the rest doesn’t take long.

Recipe for English Dover sole with Italian peppers on a Swiss rösti bed

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 3 red peppers
• 2 vacuum packs of ready made rösti – or you could simply use fried potatoes
• 2 fat cloves of garlic mashed with 1 tsp smoked salt
• 230g/8 oz pitted black olives (ideally 3 packets of Crespo pitted black olives with herbs – if you have to use pitted-in-brine go here to see how to make them edible)
• 6 tbsp/90 ml olive oil (use any oil which the olives have been in) plus more for frying the fish
• 25g/1 oz chives
• 2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 lemon
• 6 Dover sole fillets
• smoked salt, Sichuan or Red Kampot pepper

Method

1. Cut the pepper in two vertically, cut away the stalk, wash out the seeds, and cut into smallish strips.
2. Place on a grill pan on foil (to save the washing up) skin side up and grill until the skin begins to blacken.
3. If you are a perfectionist you can then peel (put them, hot from the grill, into a bowl and cover with cling film. Allow to cool, the peel will come away relatively easily).
4. Otherwise simply add the garlic, olives, oil, chives and parsley together with some salt and pepper and put in a sterilised jar – they will keep for up to a week in the fridge. Go here for how to sterilise a jar easily.
5. About half an hour before you are about to eat make the rösti.
6. Just before eating fry the fish in olive oil
7. Serve the fish on a bed of rösti, top with the marinated peppers, and serve with slices of lemon.