I’ve been trawling through the very excellent BBC Good Food website in order to learn some new healthy dishes and avoid dying of boredom while eating healthily. I found many lovely recipes including a great one for Sicilian Fish Stew.
I tried it out, made a few tweaks, used a generous hand with the lemon juice, garlic and chilli, and was very happy with the results. Leftovers the next day were very good, and best of all, it’s a one-pot dish.
Sicilian Fish Stew
Ingredients
Serves 2
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 anchovy
- 400g tin plum tomatoes
- 125ml white wine
- 400ml fish, chicken or vegetable stock
- 100g couscous (wholemeal if possible)
- 250g white fish fillets
- Juice and zest of half a lemon
- Pinch chilli flakes (or more to taste)
- Black pepper
Directions
- Warm a little olive oil in a large saucepan. Sweat the onion and garlic until soft.
- Add in the tomatoes, anchovy, wine and chilli (I used about half a teaspoon). Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer the tomatoes for about 10-15 minutes until they break down.
- Add the stock, fish and couscous. Cook gently for about 5-10 minutes until the fish is cooked through and the couscous is tender.
- Squeeze in the lemon juice and decorate each helping with some lemon zest and a sprig of parsley (if, like me, you hate parsley, coriander goes well).
These quantities will make you a lovely loose, almost soup-like stew which you can eat with a spoon and mop up with bread. If you’d prefer something a bit thicker, you could leave out the stock, simmer the tomatoes for a bit longer and cook the couscous separately.
By the way, did you know that an incredibly delicious Mediterranean fish stew is currently served in the basement of Fallon & Byrne’s on Exchequer St in Dublin? It’s stupendously good and costs under €10. The last time we ate there, I told Peter not to touch my bowl of stew while I went to the bathroom. He assured me that he was too full to touch it, but then when I came back he was merrily tucking in. Fallon & Byrne is going into receivership because of unpaid tax, let’s hope they sort out their financial issues as they are a consistently good place to eat.