Cured kingfish with cucumber and gin and tonic granita

ingredients

• • ½ telegraph cucumber, seeds removed, cut into 1cm dice
  • 85 ml tonic water
  • 1 skinned and boned kingfish top loin (about 1kg)
  • To serve: salad burnet (see note)

• Gin and tonic granita

  • ½ telegraph cucumber, seeds removed, roughly chopped
  • 15 ml Hendricks gin
  • 10 ml sugar syrup (see note)
  • 85 ml tonic water

• Gin cure

  • 1 tbsp juniper berries
  • 5 gm fresh ginger, grated
  • ¼ cinnamon quill
  • 4 gm liquorice root (see note), finely chopped
  • Finely grated rind of ½ pink grapefruit, lemon and lime
  • 30 gm each caster sugar

• Juniper mascarpone

  • 100 gm mascarpone
  • ½ bunch chives, finely chopped
  • 2 golden shallots, finely diced
  • Finely grated rind of ½ lemon
  • 1 tsp juniper berries, finely crushed with mortar and pestle

method

• Main

  • 1

    For gin and tonic granita, blend cucumber, gin and 10ml sugar syrup in a blender until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve, stir in tonic water and transfer to a 20cm x 30cm shallow metal tray and freeze, stirring and scraping occasionally with a fork, until ice crystals form (4-5 hours).

  • 2

    Combine cucumber and tonic in a bowl and refrigerate for flavours to develop (2-3 hours), then strain and discard liquid.

  • 3

    For gin cure, process all ingredients except sugar in a food processor until fine (2-3 minutes), then stir in sugar and salt to taste. Place kingfish in a non-reactive container and pat the cure mix evenly on both sides. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours for flavours to cure.

  • 4

    For juniper mascarpone, mix ingredients in a bowl, season to taste and refrigerate until needed.

  • 5

    Wipe excess cure from kingfish with paper towels and pat dry. Cut kingfish into 5mm slices, arrange on a platter, top with granita, diced cucumber and salad burnet and serve with juniper mascarpone.

notes

Note Salad burnet, a herb that tastes similar to cucumber, is available from select herb sellers; if it's unavailable, substitute a mild micro-cress. For sugar syrup, heat equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan until sugar dissolves, then cool. Liquorice root is available at Asian supermarkets.