Merluza a la Sidre
This week we got Hake from the CSF. This was definitely a new fish for me, so I went looking for more information on the ‘net. What I discovered was that there is a traditional dish from the Asturias region of Spain called Merluza a la Sidre (or Hake in Cider). Given that I didn’t have any clams or other shellfish, just the hake, I put together a variation of a couple of the recipes I found.
Merluza a la Sidre
1-1.5 lb hake fillet
4 large red potatoes
1 spanish onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1-2 Tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp smoked spanish paprika
12 oz hard cider (dry – I used New English Cider from Nashoba winery)
1 Tbsp butter
olive oil
Wash the potatoes and slice into thick slices. You can peel them if you like, but I didn’t bother with the red-skinned ones. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put about a tablespoon of oil in a large dish that can go in the oven, add the potatoes along with salt and pepper and toss. Dot the top with a tablespoon or so of butter and put into the oven to start cooking while you prepare the fish.
Heat another tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and add the onions and garlic. Saute the onions until they get a little brown and carmelized, then add the parsley and paprika. Stir to combine and take off the heat.
Cut the fish into serving size pieces and season with salt and pepper.
Take the dish with the potatoes out of the oven. Give them a bit of a stir to make sure they’re all getting cooked. Put the pieces of fish on top of the potatoes. Spoon the onion mixture over the fish, then pour the cider over everything. Put it back in the oven for 15 minutes or until the fish is cooked. Serve with a crusty bread as there will be a lot of juices to mop up.
The other good thing about having a new type of fish to look up is that I found two more good places to go for fish recipes. One is foodista which has articles about food along with recipes. And the other is all-fish-seafood-recipes. What I like about both of these is that they include a wider variety of fish in their recipes.
Yesterday I made Hake with Peppered Macadamia Nuts from a recipe on Foodista. I put some red-pepper mayonaise from last week with it. That went really well as the coolness of the mayo countered the heat of the chili pepper.