White fish à la Coral Gables

Some time ago, we had a delightful lunch on the terrace of an Italian restaurant in Merrick Park, Coral Gables. The fish was a prized South Floridian red snapper, lightly flowered and pan-fried. It was served on an olive oil-tomato-caper sauce with potato gratin, Gratin Dauphinois, and green beans. The dish was colourful and traditionally Italian.

My recipe is inspired by this lunch. I use fillets of cod, breaded and oven-roasted. The sauce is traditional French sauce vierge with added capers. For the recipe, you could use any fresh tasty white fish fillets such as cod, monkfish, sea bass and so on.

2 servings

2 pieces of cod fillet, about 120 g each

2 tbsp. bread crumbs

Olive oil

For the sauce vierge:

50 ml tasty organic extra virgin olive oil

Juice of ¼ lemon

A dash of pressed garlic

Freshly ground black pepper

1 ripe medium tomato

2 tsp. small capers

Chopped basil or parsley

Preheat the oven to 200°C, roast.

Chop the tomato into very small pieces and place in a bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, pressed garlic, black pepper, and capers and mix. Let the tomato marinate while you prepare the fish. Just before serving, mix with chopped fresh herbs.

Coat an oven-proof dish with olive oil and pace the fish fillets in it. Cover the fillets with breadcrumbs and drizzle over some olive oil. Roast for about 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets.

When the fish is done, divide the sauce vierge on the plates and place the fish on top. Serve with potato gratin and microwaved green beans.