Crab Toasts and Halibut with Salsa Verde and Sauteed Potatoes

A few days ago we decided to cook something special this evening. Shortly afterwards, we decided that the starter should be crab toasts. After quite a lot more thinking, we still hadn’t decided what our main course should be, so we figured that when we went to buy the crab from the fishmonger, we would just see what else they had and choose something on the spot.

We seasoned the crab with salt and pepper and added a dash of lemon juice. We had planned to add some paprika or cayenne pepper or something else spicy, but it didn’t seem to need it so we left it out. We toasted some slices of French bread under the grill, then piled the seasoned crab onto the toast and topped with some onuga. It’s the first time we’ve had onuga – it’s a caviar-like substance made from smoked herring roe, which was agreeably smoky and not too salty. It all went rather well together, but was best eaten with the fingers, which seemed a bit wrong after we’d set the table so well.

We seasoned our halibut steaks with salt and pepper and then pan fried them in a mixture of olive oil and butter, spooning the oil and butter over the fish periodically as we went. This turned out very well; the fish was cooked just right and had loads of flavour. Served with some sauteed potatoes and also some green beans and purple sprouting broccoli.