LEMON AND HERB BUTTER HAKE WITH GARLIC AND HERB CRUMB TOPPING
The wonderful thing about cooking good fish is you can make an amazing dish with simple ingredients that will wow your pallet.
Hake is a beautiful white piece of fresh fish. You can also use haddock and whiting for this dish.
The most important thing about this is to ensure the fish is at its freshest. Best eaten on the day but can freeze up to a month. Don’t leave it any longer as it will start to lose its flavour.
Your fishmonger will pin bone the fillets for you (remove all the small little bones)
Ingredients
Hake Fillets (all bones removed, skin on) I had 6 fillets for this
Butter
Tbs olive oil
A few tablespoons of chopped herbs (tarragon, chives, parsley)
2 tbs lemon juice
100g Breadcrumbs (this was for 6 fillets and I still had some leftover)
2 cloves garlic minced
Chopped parsley
Juice of a half lemon
For the crumb topping, In a pan melt butter on low heat, add garlic, saute, then add breadcrumbs, parsley and lemon. Put to one side.
Keep the skin on fish when cooking as it holds the fillet together for you perfectly.
Make sure the fish is bone dry, pat it with a kitchen paper.
Put a pinch of sea salt and some pepper on the skin side of fish just before cooking
Heat your pan, get it very hot. Add a swivel oil and a few knobs of butter
Put fish in skin down, give it a few minutes then turn over once golden in colour. Fish cooks very quickly and you don’t want to overcook as it will dry it out.
Once turned, continue to spoon over the delicious butter it is cooking in. This is called basting.
After a few minutes check if the fish is cooked, just get the point of the knife at the outer edge and lift up. If it is anyway translucent it is not cooked. Turn the heat down slightly. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of fish. It really only takes a few minutes so keep an eye on it.
Once cooked, lift off and put to one side. I place mine in a baking dish to prepare for grilling.
Turn on grill, cover the fish with breadcrumb on top of flesh side and grill for 2 minutes. Keep an eye on this as you don’t want the breadcrumb topping to burn.
While this is happening, add a few knobs of butter to the pan that you cooked the fish in, add lemon juice and the chopped herbs. Mix together
Plate up fish with some stem broccoli and baby potatoes, and spoon over herbed lemon and butter sauce. A simple, stylish, restaurant-quality meal to have at home for all the family!
