How to make blackberry cod

Make the most of blackberry season and don’t consign the poor things to desserts – spruce'em up with juniper berries, gin, herbs. Oh, and cured cod.

Wallop: cod and blackberries make for a light, refreshing summer hit (Jason Bailey)

Blackberry cured cod with fennel, candy beet and blackberry remoulade

You need to use really fresh fish for this, so make sure it’s not fishy at all and very clean and bright.

For the cure

150g sweet blackberries
Zest of one lemon
4 juniper berries, lightly crushed
​25ml gin
2 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 fresh loin fillets of cod, hake or 120g each
Knob of butter
Sprig of thyme
Garlic clove, lightly crushed

For the remoulade

80ml white wine vinegar
​100g sweet blackberries
Pinch of salt
Bay leaf
1 candy striped beetroot, peeled and sliced very thinly (preferably with a mandolin)
1 granny smith or cox apple, peeled, cored and julienned
½ bulb of fennel, sliced very finely (preferably with a mandolin)
½ red onion, very finely sliced
2 tbsp soft herbs such as dill and chervil, leaves picked and roughly chopped
​tbsp capers
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp Dijon
tbsp. olive oil
​tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds

First cure your fish. Combine all the ingredients for the cure in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until you have a purple paste. Place the fish into a large bowl or baking tin and cover all over with the cure. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably 4. While that’s curing, you’re going to lightly pickle the blackberries. Bring the vinegar to the boil with the salt and bay in a non-reactive pan. Add the blackberries and set aside

When the fish has cured, rinse it gently under a softly running tap and dry with kitchen roll. Leave on the kitchen roll to dry while you make the remoulade

To do this, combine the sliced ingredients in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, olive oil together along with 1 tbsp of the blackberry vinegar (from pickling the blackberries), and use it to dress the remoulade. Add the capers, pumpkin seeds and soft herbs and combine until everything is lightly and evenly coated. Drain and add the blackberries, reserving the blackberry-infused vinegar for other occasions (lovely dressing for salad mixed with olive oil).

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed non-stick frying pan or cast iron skillet over a medium-to-high heat with a tbsp of olive oil and knob of butter, garlic and thyme. Place the fish in the pan and cook, without moving it – you want to create a self-sealing crust – for three or so minutes. Baste with the melted butter. When it comes away from the pan naturally, flip it over and finish for a couple more minutes, continuing to baste it. Once just cooked through, divide the fish between plates with the remoulade. I like to season the fish with a little more of the vinegar (as you would lemon juice).

Garnish with more fresh herbs.

Recipe created by Rosie Birkett with Driscoll's sweet blackberries. Visit uksweetblackberries.co.uk for more recipes