What to Cook Tonight: Sea Bass with Courgettes and Samphire

Sea Bass with Courgettes and Samphire

Serves 2

Preparation 10 minutes

Cooking time 15 minutes

Ingredients
2 x 200g skin-on sea bass fillets
1 bunch rosemary, stemmed and chopped
2 large courgettes
200g samphire (see tip)
juice of – lime
1 bunch basil

Method
Preheat oven to 180?C. Make incisions in the fish and fill them with rosemary. Brush the sea bass fillets with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and place the fish in a baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the courgettes lengthwise with a julienne peeler. Heat a splash of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the courgettes and cook for about 2 minutes; the courgettes should remain firm. Add the samphire and lime juice, and season with pepper. Simmer the mixture for 2 minutes more.

Finely chop the basil. Remove the vegetables from the heat and add the basil.

Arrange the vegetables on plates and place the fish on top.

Tip: Courgettes
Just slice the courgettes until you get to the core, where the seeds are. You can use the core for another dish (salad, for instance, or in a soup).

Tip: Samphire
Samphire is a bright green sea vegetable with a salty taste. It is often compared to baby asparagus, and its high salt content means that seasoning needn’t be added during the cooking process. Quite often, it is simply boiled or steamed with a little olive oil or butter to create a delicious accompaniment to a main meal. It has a strongly oceanic flavour and, therefore, goes wonderfully with seafood. If samphire is not available, you can use any kind of seaweed, which also has a salty taste.

Extracted from Pure & Simple: A Natural Food Way of Life by Pascale Naessens (Abrams, approx €21), http://abramsandchronicle.co.uk/books/food-and-drink/9781419726170-pure-and-simple-a-natural-food-way-of-life

Photograph – 2017 Uitgeverij Lannoo, courtesy of Abrams.