Fish with rocket pesto, tomato and onions

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This was a variation of a Moroccan recipe – fish tagine with chermoula, tomato and potato. Made it for the Feb 2018 lunch with Mallika, Raghu and friends. My birthday actually! I made the rocket pesto only because I had bought a bag of rocket the previous weekend (for when Sham and friends had come down) from the Portsmouth market and it was twice the quantity when unstuffed. Angie or Ravi had suggested making pesto with it. Anyway it is basically a whizzing of the rocket in the food processor, with some olive oil, a bit of lemon, some nuts, maybe even a fresh chilli and some garlic; you might need a touch of salt, but not much. It looks so good! Do taste it first to get it right.

12 fish steaks (best some firm fish, couldn’t get a white fish, so used salmon steaks)

1 cup of tomato puree, mixed with a cup of water, some salt, fresh black pepper, two teaspoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and 4 tablespoons of olive oil.

Parsley

Coriander

5 large tomatoes, sliced thickish

2 large onions, cut into eighths or tenths – sort of canoe shaped.

 

Brush the pesto on either side of each piece of fish and leave to marinate for half an hour. Then place a layer of slice tomatoes and onions on the bottom of a large baking dish (or tagine if using smaller quantities or have a big enough tagine).Then cover with the slices of fish. Then a layer of tomatoes and onions on top of the fish. Then pour the tomato paste over the top of all this.

Cover with foil, bake for 40 minutes, remove foil and place baking tray in top part of oven and bake open for a further ten minutes until the top layer of onions is browned and the tomatoes beginning to char at the edges. Garnish with parsley and coriander and serve as is.

aphs & more.