Plaice with Mediterranean Vegetables and Lemon and Parsley Butter

This is a perfect summer evening dinner - so simple to throw together with the minimum of effort and yet so delicious. It's ideal for evenings when you'd rather be spending time in the garden than the kitchen. 

I served this with Jersey Royal's as they are in season now, but this goes equally well with steamed rice, couscous or a jacket potato too. 

Serves 2-3

3 plaice fillets

1 red onion

10 cherry tomatoes

1 red pepper

2 lemons

3 garlic cloves

1.5 tablespoons olive oil 

Few sprigs of oregano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

50g butter (room temperature)

2 tablespoons fresh parsley

Firstly preheat the oven the 180 degrees. 

Chop the onion, pepper, tomatoes and 1 lemon into equal sized pieces. Chop the garlic cloves into 2-3 small pieces and place all into an oven proof dish. Drizzle well with olive oil, season and give a good shake. Place the sprigs of oregano around the dish and pop into the oven for 20 minutes. 

If you're serving with Jersey Royals, give these a good wash now and place to cook in lightly salted water in a pan over a moderate heat. Allow to come to the boil then simmer for fifteen minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough to put a fork through (or of course to your own preference). 

After 20 minutes remove the vegetables from the oven and positive the plaice fillets over the top of the vegetables. Season the fish and return to the oven for ten minutes. 

A couple of minutes before removing the plaice and vegetables from the oven, place a small pan on a low heat and add the butter to melt. Finely chop the parsley and then squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and add the chopped parsley and stir through.

Remove dish from the oven and allow to stand for a couple of minutes. In the meantime drain the potatoes and return to the pan and place back on the heat for 30 seconds and give a good shake to draw out any excess liquid.

Plate up the potatoes, plaice and vegetables and drizzle over a generous amount of the lemony parsley butter ensuring to give the potatoes a good coating. Is the remaining half of lemon for a final flourish over the fish. Enjoy! 

Friday Fish Dish

Baked Anchovy-Stuffed Plaice Fillets

This was a very quickly thrown together meal a couple of weekends ago, just before payday, which cost very little yet tasted amazing. The picture doesn’t do it justice, and displays my serious lack of finesse at putting together a plate of pretty food, however I felt I should share this delectable dish.

Plaice is one of those delicate tasting white fish that can be served with a simple drizzle of lemon to become quite lovely, but with the odd uplifting flavour addition can be quite wonderful.

I prepared a stuffing to fill and roll the plaice fillets which was made up of 3 slices of white crusty bread – zapped in the food processor, a heaped tablespoon of chopped parsley, a tin of anchovies chopped up finely, 4 spring onions, 1 red chilli, salt and pepper, a teaspoon full of paprika and the juice and zest of 1 lemon. I mixed this together well then laid out each fillet and spread the filling over generously then rolled.

This was then baked in the oven for just over fifteen minutes. The result really was splendid (even if I say so myself), the salty flavoursome anchovies really brought the plaice to life and the gentle spicing and smoky paprika made for a really tasty fish dish. The crumb was nicely crisped on the outside which made for a good texture too.

I served this dish with New Potatoes, wilted, buttered spinach and some parsnip puree. These gentle vegetable flavours only enhanced the flavoursome fish dish.