Freshly caught fish is nutritious and full of flavour, and using farmed fish helps prevent natural fish stocks being depleted. This recipe for herb crusted trout from Geoff Jansz looks and tastes superb, and takes only minutes to cook.
Ingredients
4 fish steaks, 160 to 180g (use ocean trout or Atlantic salmon steaks, or ask your fishmonger to cut off a fillet from a whole fish and then cut it into even-sized pieces)
Herb Topping
- 2 cups crusty Italian-style bread, cut into chunks
- 1 cup Italian parsley
- 6 fresh basil leaves
- 1/2 cup freshly grated good quality parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup pine nuts (or substitute almonds)
- 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
Tomato Sauce
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 Roma (egg) tomatoes, diced
- 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons little black olives (Ligurian olives, from Italian delis are ideal; otherwise buy small black olives)
- black pepper, freshly ground
Method
- Put all the topping ingredients except the olive oil into a blender. Blend together for a few minutes until well combined. With the blender running, add the olive oil. Blend for a few seconds longer.
- With a sharp knife, nick the skin side of the fish so that it doesn’t curl up when cooking. Put a little olive oil into a hot ovenproof frying pan and just seal the surface of the non-skin side of the steaks. Remove the fish from the pan and pat some of the herb topping onto the sealed side of each fish steak.
- Place the pan into an oven pre-heated to 200°C, for five to six minutes only. (You could also use a lightly oiled ovenproof dish to bake the fish.)
- While the fish is baking make the tomato sauce. In a saucepan heat the olive oil on high, add the tomatoes and cook them until they collapse. Add the brown sugar, cider vinegar, black olives and black pepper. Spoon the sauce onto warmed plates and place the baked fish steaks on top. Serves
