One of the things that I love most about the summer is the bountiful quantities of fresh tomatoes and basil that are available. This dish is adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe that I like cooking – I’ve tweaked several things, but the key changes are that I’ve removed cream from the equation and replaced pasta with fish which makes this a very healthy option.
Preparation Time: 5 minutes / Cooking Time: 55 minutes / Serves 2
Ingredients
- 500g cherry tomatoes
- 40 fresh basil leaves
- 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
- 1 800g or 2 400 g fillet(s) of pink snapper
- 30ml extra virgin olive oil
- salt & pepper to taste
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 200oC.
- Cover a 30 x 25 cm baking dish with aluminium foil.
- Spread the tomatoes and garlic evenly across the baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
- Put in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the tomatoes start to turn black and split.
- Take the baking dish out of the oven and give the tomatoes a little shake.
- Turn the oven down to 180oC.
- Press down on each of the tomatoes with a fork. Be careful as they can squirt.
- Place the fish fillet(s) in the centre of the baking dish, ensuring the tomatoes are next to, and not under the fish (the tomatoes can be under the fish, but it works better if they aren’t).
- Put the baking tray back into the oven for a further 15 minutes. The fish is ready when it’s no longer translucent and flakes when you cut through it.
- Take the baking tray out of the oven and scatter the basil leaves over the tomatoes, stirring them through the tomatoes for about a minute until they start to wilt.
- Serve with the fish on the bottom of the plate and the tomato and basil piled generously on top.
Notes
If you can’t find pink snapper, any white, flaky fish such as bream or sea bass can be used.
If your fish fillet has the skin on, ensure that the the skin is facing down when baking.
This dish is easily scalable. Using twice the amount of all ingredients will serve 4 people with no other adjustments required.