Pepper and Cream Vegetables with Fish Dumplings

Preparation of sauce, vegetable garnish and fish:

1. For the sauce, wash the 500 g red peppers, cut in half, remove the stem and seeds and cut into large pieces. Skin, halve and slice shallots. Wash the chilli, cut in half lengthways, remove the stem and seeds and cut the halves into thin strips. Finely chop parsley for vegetables and also for the fish.
2. For the vegetable insert, cut the colored peppers at their notches, remove the stem and core and then peel off the skin with the vegetable peeler. Cut the individual segments into bite-sized pieces. Wash the celery stalks, pull out any threads and then cut them into slices. Have everything ready for the time being.
3. Wash the fish in cold water, dry it well, remove any bones, cut it into large cubes, put it in a plastic bag and place it in the freezer for about 1 – 2 hours. The fish should be slightly frozen, but not rock hard. This saves you having to use ice cubes later on. Cut toast bread into small pieces, pour milk over it and place it in the refrigerator until the dumplings are prepared so that these ingredients are also well chilled.

Preparation of the sauce:

1. In a larger pan in the olive oil, sweat the shallots until translucent, sprinkle with the sugar, let it caramelize until golden yellow, add the red pepper pieces and caramelize gently. Then deglaze with vinegar and tomato juice, season with salt and pepper and let everything simmer until the peppers are soft. Possibly add the 150 ml of water if it boils down a lot. When the bell peppers are soft, briefly pour everything into a taller container and puree it finely with a hand blender. Then pass through a sieve until only the solid components are left as residues. Put the sauce back into the pan (do not put it on the stove) and just keep it ready for the time being.
2. If you want a rice or other side dish, take into account its preparation now. See tip at the end of the recipe.

Fish dumplings:

1. Put on a large saucepan with enough salted water and slowly bring to a boil.
2. Put the slightly frozen fish and the toast with the milk in a blender. Open an egg, separate it and only add half of the egg white. Rub the lemon zest directly into it and add a little pepper and salt. Then mix everything finely in short intervals, pause briefly, pour in the cream and continue mixing in batches until a creamy farce is created. It must not be mixed for too long and continuously so that the mixer does not generate any heat. This can affect the texture of the fish farce and it will not set later. Finally fold in the parsley and season again and season a little if necessary.
3. If the water boils in the meantime, turn off the heat immediately. Using 2 tablespoons, form about 12 small cams from the mixture and slide them into the water. Under no circumstances should it boil anymore, because you only have to steep it for about 8 minutes. When they have set and kept their shape, carefully lift them out with a slotted spoon and store them temporarily on a plate.

Completion:

1. Heat the sauce in the pan and add the colored pepper and celery pieces. Since they are skinned, they have to cook in it for a maximum of 2-3 minutes. They should stay crisp. Meanwhile stir in the creme fraiche and parsley. After the 2 – 3 minutes have elapsed, turn off the heat, add the fish dumplings to the vegetables in the sauce and let them steep for another 2 minutes.
2. Serve with the desired side dish and …………. let taste. N ‘good’n ……

Tip:

1. The fish farce can also be used as a filling for fish fillet rolls or the like – regardless of the fish it is made of. The preparation of a meat farce is the same, only with slightly frozen meat cubes (mostly poultry or veal). For problem-free, parallel rice preparation, I refer to the following tip. This not only relates to rice pudding, but can also be transferred to normal Basmati rice. However, this is “parboiled” in salt water. In this way, it becomes wonderfully loose, you no longer have to keep an eye on it and only loosened it with a spoon before serving and refined with a stirred in tablespoon of butter.