As always, cooking begins in the market place. I went to my fisherman and found a 6kg grouper resting on ice. The very charming lady next before me was asking for the body of the fish to be cut in slices for the grill. I was the lucky customer to get the head of the fish, weighing 2kilos!
When you have such a treasure in your hands, the choices are limited. Boil and eat with a light dressing or mayonnaise. I opted for the later, but with a Greek twist.
I put the fish with all the necessary ingredient to the boil and started preparing my Greek Mayonnaise.
I put fish roe (taramas) with crushed capers in the mixer and then added the eggs. The photo is enlarged, so be careful with the quantities. I put one table spoon of fish roe and one of capers.
The rest of the ingredients are egg yolks, olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Once the mayo is ready, I put it in the fridge to rest and I prepared a nice fresh salad mix to provide the support for the fish.
Lettuce, shredded carrot, dill, parsley, green onion, and fresh coriander, dressed in olive oil, sea salt, vinegar and lemon juice.
I added sautéed sliced eggplants in the dish in order to counter the acidity of the mayo and the salad. The final touch is the mayo on top of the fish and the potatoes.
I confess that I had tasted the mayo before serving and it was so good that I forgot to dress the dish with the chopped parsley I had prepared. In any case, the dish was delicious. The flesh of the head is juicy and tender, and has more flavor than the rest of the fish. The Greek mayo added punch to the flavor bouquet, while the potatoes, carrots and the eggplant partnered the fish in a discrete and purposeful way.