Well, the little bat happened to fly by a fish shop and got this nice white fish. Now we all know fish is healthy and recommended so we went ahead and cooked it for our Sunday dinner with some fresh asparagus on the side. Now of course we had to do a little research and what cropped up is that hake is one of the lowest in fats and carbs while very high in protein value, and as if that wasn’t enough, it is also high in some minerals and vitamins (especially potassium and phosphorus). Asparagus is even lower in fats and calories and packed with vitamins especially Vitamin K and also contains calcium. I honestly haven’t planed this out but it seems that today’s combo is extremely low fat and nutritious meal! I happened to add some garlic butter to the cooking recipe but considering how low fat the rest is, I will suggest it for you guys too! (As long as you understand that a little doesn’t mean a nice thick slice… I just hate it when a recipe says a little and then they put in a whole inch of a butter stick! What’s little about that!? Oh, you just meant that you’re not putting all the stick I guess?! But enough ranting and more cooking Teasy!)
Ingredients
- Hake
- Asparagus
- Garlic Butter (or garlic and salted butter. Side note – DON’T over do it with the butter!)
- Ginger
- Lemon
- Spirit Vinegar
- Honey
- Dill
- Horseradish
- Bay Leaves
- Mustard
- Fennel
- Salt and Pepper
Method
Before I start, I need to make a little confession. I had a beautifully infused spirit vinegar that comes with some gherkins I bought a while ago and I actually used that to fry my fish. However, here is the list of the ingredients that it was infused with, plus some of the seeds I could see in there as well as taste, so you can either recreate it (by tossing all the ingredients in the vinegar and letting it sit for a couple of weeks or months) or more likely cook the ingredients in the vinegar for a few minutes before you toss the fish in there: Spirit Vinegar, sugar (I would switch that with honey as always), dill, horseradish, bay leaves, mustard, fennel, black peppercorns, and ginger (I would recommend some coriander with this particular recipe too, will help with the asparagus side effects – gas!).
So, the fish was really simple to cook once you had your spirit vinegar ready. Simply cover the base of the pan with the vinegar, heat, and place the fish. That is literally all there is to it, definitely no need for oil or butter for this one, the vinegar will boil the fish nicely, dry up and pan fry it lightly.
Now for the asparagus, we went with a complimenting pickled flavor, that’s also pan-fried and super easy to do. Chop the ginger (and the garlic if you are not using garlic butter) place the butter (not more than you would use to spread on one slice of bread) in a heated pan and leave for two seconds, just until it melts a little so you can place your ginger (and garlic) in the little pool and swirl a little to make sure it will fry nicely. Chop of the lower ends of the asparagus, place in the pan, and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir until the asparagus starts to soften, then add some lemon and once more vinegar (I used white vinegar here, not the infused version). Once the asparagus is nice and soft your dinner is served! (Asparagus are also eaten raw, so if you like them nice and crunchy, stop cooking earlier! The less you cook the butter, the healthier the recipe is.
Variations
I decorated the plate with some dried mint on my fish, you could use fresh mint and lemon wedges, it’s a fish dish after all! I am sure that some roughly chopped fennel bulb with the asparagus for this recipe would have blended in nicely, I will definitely try that for my other half of the fish (I just didn’t think of it in time for this one)! I have seen recipes where they add chili to the asparagus, I am a fan of hot, spicy plates, but this one has a nice pickled flavor to it so I preferred to skip the chilies. Hope you try this recipe and leave us a comment to share your experience and recommendations with us, we’ll be happy to hear from you!
Today I messed up!!! But I am sharing with you so you do not repeat my mistakes! I overdid it with garlic butter and sweet vinegar! They really don’t go well together, the first time I did this recipe the garlic butter was not really there in taste, it was a lot better… maybe using normal butter is better, not sure, maybe I will give it one more try in the future and let you know! You can find the pic of my plate on our social media, it still looks good, the taste was very disappointing compared to the original, however!