Midweek meals aren’t always inspiring and creative dishes. Time and energy are not always on your side. Every so often though you feel ready to make something fun! This Herb Crusted Hake is ready for those times. It might sound overly complicated, but it is dead easy. It takes about 10 minutes to put together, is filled with flavour and vegetables and tastes amazing.
As you might expect it’s a one-person recipe, everything you need to have a balanced and tasty meal ready to eat in 40 minutes. It’s easy to scale up to more people, just multiply everything by the amount of people you’re serving. Timings would be exactly the same.
Ingredients
I’ve chosen hake here, because it was cheap in the supermarket, but this dish would work with any white fish. I probably wouldn’t use salmon or smoked haddock as they have stronger flavours and the herby crust is slightly more subtly flavoured so wouldn’t stand up to it. In terms of herbs I went for mint and parsley for a really fresh flavour that everyone can enjoy. It also has a slight chilli kick with a green finger chilli. I don’t think it was too spicy at all, but it depends on your tolerance and how spicy the chilli ends up being.
To bulk out the herbs I use a mix of bread and almonds. Bread keeps everything bound together, where possible use white crusty bread, or stale bread. Preferably not sliced bread as it tends to not make breadcrumbs as well. Almonds add some crunch, flavour and they also release their oils when they are whizzed up and help to stick everything together. If you are allergic to nuts, you can leave them out, and add slightly more bread or substitute with sunflower seeds.
For the rice and vegetable side dish, I roasted some vegetables alongside the fish. Mainly to save on dishes to wash up, and because I think roasted vegetables taste the best. As for rice, I had some red rice, which goes perfectly with fish, it’s a firmer textured rice and has a nutty flavour to it. For this side dish a firmer rice works better, so a brown basmati or red or wild rice is actually preferable. White rice would be fine, but I’m not the best at cooking rice, and I find it a bit temperamental. Whereas with firmer rice varieties, you can bung in a ton of water, and the rice doesn’t seem to overcook. But it’s up to you. Whatever is to hand is the rule of midweek cooking.
Prep & Cooking
The handiest of all cooking gadgets is the blender, especially when chopping feels like too much effort. The herb crust will take longer to make without a blender to be honest, you can chop everything with a knife but you’ll be there a while. A blender saves on time when you want to eat quickly. Stick everything in and blend. You’re done in 2 minutes.
Everything else is super easy as well! It’s a very low effort meal. Which is exactly what you want on a Monday night. Roast everything for the same time as the fish. I used mushrooms and cherry tomatoes because they’re quick to cook. I also used cabbage, as I had one leftover from last week that needed using. Roasting cabbage is so easy and tastes amazing. I quartered the cabbage and cut out the tough stem and put it whole on the roasting dish. Then when it came out the oven, I simply sliced it into one-inch sections and added to the rice with the mushrooms and tomatoes.
If you’re going to use different vegetables, like aubergine, carrots, peppers etc. you will need to cook them for longer, 50-60 minutes. So, cook them separately from the fish. Adding the fish in for the last 25 minutes.
Final notes
Midweek meals can be tasty and low effort. This Herb Crusted Hake is fresh, with a Mediterranean feel, but it suits a grey day that needs brightening up. It’s hearty and filling enough to be a solid autumnal recipe too!
Enjoy the fish with a spoonful of natural yogurt mixed with some lemon juice as a slightly sour little sauce on the side.
If you wanted to turn this into a meal for when you have guests, multiply the herb crust recipe by 4 and use a whole or side of fish as a centrepiece for your meal, and serve it with a lemon sauce, roast vegetables, salad, and crispy shallot rice with butter.
But it’s just as impressive serving one person on a Monday night. Here is the recipe!
Herb Crusted Hake – Recipe
Serves 1 – 10 active minutes / 30 minutes cooking – Blender & 1 ovenproof dish & 1 saucepan
Ingredients
Herb crust:
Small handful of mint
Small handful of parsley
1 Green chilli
15 Almonds or a tbsp sunflower seeds
Crusty end of baguette
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp Olive oil
Rest of ingredients:
Hake fillet
Handful of mushrooms
Handful of cherry tomatoes
Quarter of a sweetheart cabbage
1/3 cup of rice (I used red rice, but you can use any rice)
20g butter
2 tbsp natural or Greek yogurt
1 tsp lemon juice
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C
In a blender add all the herb crust ingredients and whizz up until you get a breadcrumb consistency.
Oil the hake and put on in an ovenproof dish, pat the herb crust all over the top of the fish, covering as much as you can of the edges.
Wash the vegetables, and add to the ovenproof dish with a tiny drizzle of olive oil.
Bake for 25-30 minutes
Cook rice to packet instructions.
Remove the fish and vegetables, drain the rice.
Add the vegetables and the butter to the steaming rice and stir until the butter has melted.
Serve the fish and vegetable rice with lemon slices and the yogurt mixed with the lemon juice.
Once you’re done, check out my other recent posts! Don’t forget to leave a comment!
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