The street markets in Paris will ruin me sooner or later, they’re my personal Las Vegas in a way. Addicted as I am to good food I’m always tempted by excellent products, too – and so I spend far too much money on our family lunches and dinners. But I can’t help it. When I see, say, a perfect daurade on the rocks of a fish monger, I can’t resist.

Take the fish I bought this morning: beautiful in shape and size (4 pounds), it had a striking aura of freshness, a weird charisma almost, a beast with crystal clear eyes, healthy red gills – a perfect fish which almost looked as if still alive. How could you resist? It had been caught in the Atlantic off the French coast but not by one of these industrial trawlers but by some rough guys who go out on small boats – they work on having their own label of excellence, and I hope they’ll get there soon.

Anyway. To get the most fun out of my prey, I cleaned and prepared the daurade myself at home, filleted it, put off the skin even, pulled the last remaining bones – and then I pan-fried it cautiously, basted it with a self-made thyme-citrus-butter-mix, put into the medium-hot oven for 95 seconds or so – and served it with bread and a green salad. It turned out to be an expensive, yes, but perfect Sunday lunch.

Striking beauty: a perfect daurade.

With the leftovers you can prepare a good fish stock.

With a good knife, skinning a fish is quite easy.

Every fish is a piece of art.

Cutting board still.

A mix of butter, lemon zest, thyme to baste.

Filleting needs some knife skills.