Hake in butter broth
I love me a bit of fish, but I don’t always love the price…enter the often overlooked HAKE. This hake in butter broth is relatively cheaper and feels a bit posh. Perfect!
Hake is typically cheaper than cod and in my opinion, just as tasty. To really make this beautiful piece of fish shine, I served it up with a buttery broth filled with potato slices, bacon, baby gem lettuce, lemon and a good sprinkling of some herbs. It takes minimal effort, minimal time and it’s a super refreshing dish if you’ve been living off pure stodge for the last few weeks. Make it a midweek staple and get some omega 3 in ya body.
If you want to pad this dish out further, you can always throw in some peas, tomatoes or even a few cheeky prawns. If you struggle to find hake, cod works well as it’s quite similar to hake, or you could go for a round fish like sea bream. It’s a truly versatile meal and one of my favourites.
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Ingredients
- 2 portions of Hake, about 5oz each
- 4 slices smoked streaky bacon, sliced
- 150g baby potatoes, cut into thin discs
- 75g butter
- 1 lemon
- 1 baby gem lettuce, finely chopped
- Salt and pepper, to season
- Herbs of your choice to sprinkle!
Method
- Fry off your chopped bacon in a drizzle of vegetable oil until crispy, then add in the sliced baby potatoes. Cover with a little bit of water and bring to a boil, then chuck in the butter in cubes and stir through to emulsify (bring everything together, I just wanted to be fancy).
- Grate in the zest and squeeze in the juice from your lemon and then chuck in the chopped lettuce to wilt down. Season well with salt and pepper.
- While your lettuce wilts, pat your fish dry with paper towels and season. Get a frying pan with a glug of oil over a medium heat and begin to fry your fish skin side down. You want to cook your fish 80% of the way through on the skin side so keep an eye on the pan temperature, you don’t want to burn that crispy skin.
- When the fish is nearly cooked, give it a gentle flip and give it a final 1-2 minutes on the flesh side to finish cooking, then serve up the fish on top of that lovely buttery broth.
- Tip - You can add some other veg to the broth if you want to bulk it out a little - whack in some frozen peas when you add in the lettuce to heat through. If you can’t get hold of hake you can swap this for any other fish. Cod works well as it’s quite similar to hake, or you could go for a round fish like sea bream.