Pan Fried Orange Roughy with Fresh Greens
Serves: 2
Time: 20 minutes
Simple, clean and delicious is the only way to describe this meal. The star of the show is the orange roughy, which is a beautiful delicate fish with a buttery texture. The salad is very basic but complements nicely. Please read the cooking instructions for the fish beforehand, this is a delicate fish it has a tendency to fall apart if not handled with care.
Leftovers
There aren’t any leftovers for tonight’s dinner. Instead, I have added the ingredients for stuffed avocado to your lunch xtra’s.
What you'll need
2 x 250g portions of Orange Roughy or a similar white fish
1 small broccoli
1 Corn on the Cob
1 zucchini
100g green beans
1 lime
1/4 bunch of coriander
1 tablespoon of butter
1/2 lemon
From the pantry
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Optional Xtra for Lunch
2 avocados
1 large tinned tuna
1 large corn kernels
4 celery stalks
2 tablespoons of mayo
Feeding Four
I have added 2 portions of fish, 1 corn on the cob, 1 zucchini and some xtra beans to the feeding four shopping list, you will need to use xtra butter and lemon but you'll have those already in your shop so they aren't included.
Prep and Cook
Take fish out of the fridge.
Prep Veg
Bring a large pot of water up to the boil with a pinch of salt.
Strip the husk of the corn and try to remove as much of the threads as possible.
Once your pot is boiling drop the corn in and cook for 5 minutes, then remove the corn from the water using a pair of tongs. You are going to reuse the water.
Cut broccoli into florets.
Slice zucchini whole but use a triangle cut, so alternate the direction of your knife and slice diagonally to the right and then diagonally to the left, this may fell a bit uncoordinated, otherwise chunky rounds is fine.
Top and tail the beans.
Drop the veg into your pot of boiling water and cook for 1 minute, just long enough for all your greens to have changed to a nice deeper green.
Fill a bowl with cold water, strain the veg and drop into the bowl of cold water to cool. The strain and shake well.
Peel and slice avocado into chunky squares.
Wash and pick sprigs of coriander.
Combine all ingredients together in a bowl (You can dry and reuse the bowl that you used to cool the veg down in).
Make Dressing
Squeeze the juice of 1 lime into a small jar and combine with 1/4 teaspoon of dijon mustard and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, some salt and pepper and shake well.
Cook Fish
Heat a large non stick fry pan with 1 tablespoon of oil.
Place your fish on a paper towel and gently pat dry the top with another paper towel. But don’t squash it down.
Season both sides of the fish with salt and pepper.
When your pan is hot it will give a little sizzle when you drop a pinch of sale in.
Gently lay your fish in the pan presentation side down (if you don’t know what presentation side is any easy way to work this out is to think which side was facing up in the display cabinet when you bought it, the pretty side is always on display).
This next part is crucial. Don’t move your fish, we are going to cook by visuals and by feel not by time.
As the fish cooks you will begin to see the colour changing, as the heat rises up through the fish it will change from being a translucent colour to more of a porcelain white. When you just have a small strip of raw left on the top of the fish about two to three fingers wide then add your butter to the pan and gently swill it around the pan.
As you are swilling the pan you should see the fish shift ever so slightly that means it isn’t gripping to the pan so you can carefully flip it over using a flexible turner.
Squeeze over the lemon juice, remove from the heat and use a spoon to baste the juices over the top.
Plate it Pretty
While your fish is resting.
Toss the salad together with the dressing and sprinkle over some sea salt flakes.
Arrange the salad across the right side of your plate leaving ample space for the fish. Scatter over a couple of coriander sprigs.
Gently pick up the fish with your turner and lay down beside the salad, then baste over with some of the remaining juices.
Enjoy!
Lunch Tomorrow
This is not a meal that provides leftovers, so tomorrows lunch I have opted for stuffed avo’s.
Recipe here