Here is a South African interpretation of a Mozambican dish, hake presented in a birds’ eye chilli (peri-peri) sauce. This makes an excellent and interesting dish for a Good Friday supper.
Prep time 20 minutes/Cook time 40 minutes/Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the peri-peri sauce:
2 red onions, quartered
2 red bell peppers, quartered
3 tbsp olive oil
8–10 bird’s-eye chillies, chopped
2 tsp smoked paprika
3–4 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 limes, zested and juiced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 x 400g (14 oz) hake fillets
For the salad, toss together:
1 fennel bulb, shaved
1 onion, thinly sliced
15g (1/2 oz) mint, coarsely chopped
For the dressing, mix:
Juice of 1 lemon
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 anchovy fillets, smashed in a mortar into a paste
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
For the peri-peri sauce, preheat your oven to 180°C (160C fan/360F). Drizzle the onions and peppers with 1 tbsp olive oil and roast for 30 minutes. Note that scorching or roasting the vegetables caramelises them, bringing out their natural sweetness and intensifying flavour. Turn into a blender and combine with the remaining ingredients then process until smooth.
Blend the sauce to make sure it’s very smooth. This way it can be used as a basting or a sauce. It also helps the flavours and textures to come together. Add a knob or two of butter to finish the sauce to create a rich, velvety sheen. Transfer the resultant sauce to a saucepan and cook over a medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste.
Baste the fish in the sauce, then cook on your barbecue over medium coals for 5 minutes on each side. Alternatively, if you’re cooking on the stove, pan-fry the fish in a smoking-hot ovenproof pan, skin-side down, in a little olive oil for 3–5 minutes, or until crispy. Finish in the same pan in the oven for 2–3 minutes until the fish is cooked through.
Toss the salad with the dressing and serve with the fish and sauce.
