Hake baked with asparagus, lemon and chilli and served with salsa verde new potatoes

 

I adapted this from a Jamie Oliver recipe. It's a healthy but decadent feeling dish, perfect for if you have friends coming over for dinner or if you just want to treat yourself. This recipe feeds four but you can cut down the fish to two portions for two people. Also, I was so eager to eat this that I forgot to photograph it! So apologies, and please dont expect it to look like the picture above!

Ingredients

• Four large hake fillets (cod or pollack work well too if you can’t get hake)
• Small bag of cherry tomatoes
• 1 red chilli
• 1 lemon
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3tbsp olive oil
• 1 standard supermarket bag of asparagus (not the baby tips)
• 1 small bag of new potatoes (the very tiny ones)
• Small bunch of parsley (I just use the supermarket bags)
• Half a small bunch of mint
• 2tsp Dijon mustard
• 1tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp capers in brine
• Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil.
2. Get a medium sized roasting tin or baking dish and empty in the bag of cherry tomatoes.
3. Chop the woody ends off of the asparagus spears, chop the spears into bit sized chunks and add them to the tomatoes.
4. Slice the garlic finely and add about three cloves worth to the tomato dish, reserve the rest for the salsa verde.
5. Finely slice the chilli and add to the tomato dish along with salt and pepper and  two tbsp of olive oil. Slice the fish into thick chunks and add to the dish skin side up. Mix everything well to coat in the oil, then quarter the lemon, squeeze over the juice and add the quarters to the dish to roast with the fish.
6. Put the baking tray into the oven- this will take about 20 mins to cook- so, in the meantime put the bag of new potatoes into a saucepan, cover with water from the kettle and bring to the boil with 2-3 sprigs of mint.
7. While the potatoes are cooking make the salsa verde, you will need a food processor or a hand blender for this. Put the mint leaves (removed from stalks) into the processor along with the whole bunch of parsley, mustard, capers (drained of their brine) one tbsp olive oil, the remaining garlic and the vinegar and blitz to a paste. Season to taste.
8. Once the potatoes are cooked drain them and put them back into the dry pan. Crush them a little with the back of a spoon, then mix in the salsa verde to coat the potatoes. Keep warm until the fish is ready.
9. Once the fish is crispy on top and cooked through, remove the lemon rinds and serve the fish and veg alongside the potatoes*

*nb a very cold glass of sauvignon blanc wouldn’t go a miss here