SK and I needed to lift our boat, Chico out of the water this weekend. We do not posess a four wheel drive vehicle so SK’s father, Jim came to Dublin to lend us his four wheel drive and to tow our boat back down the country to places where there is space. We live in Dublin, land of kitchens with seventy centimeters of usable counter space and one parking space. I think it would get us into all sorts of trouble if we left a boat sitting in our car parking space all winter. But I digress. One pot fish stew. I took a photo of this, but it is on SKs phone. We needed a quick dinner in a hurry, filling enough to fill us up after our last afternoon’s racing and also something that is not too difficult to cook. this is perfect after a day at sea.
Ingredients:
two tins of tomatoes (chopped, whole plum, cherry – whatever is in your cupboard), 4 0r 5 pieces of garlic from a clove, an onion, three carrots, one courgette, one red pepper (or a colour of your choosing), mushrooms (enough for three people), small new potatoes, salt, pepper, oregano, mixed herbs, rosemary, thyme, chilli flakes.
you could also add some sticks of celery to this stew, but SK hates celery and we didn’t have any in the fridge, so none went in. you could also add a glass of wine if you wanted that extra depth of flavour. sometimes the wine is just too appealing to the taste buds to put into the stew though which was the case yesterday.
1. peel garlic, grate into a casserole dish
2. peel onion, chop finely, put into casserole dish
3. pour in olive oil. place on heat and leave to sweat.
4. meanwhile chop carrots, courgette, pepper and place in the casserole when the onions and garlic are sweated. continue to cook until the vegetables have softened a little (approx ten minutes).
5. season to taste with salt, pepper and herbs and dried chilli flakes mentioned above).
6. pour in two tins of tomatoes and bring the whole thing to a boil, rinse out the first tin with a little water to get all the tomato out of the tin, then transfer the water to the second tin and rinse it out too. add to the casserole
7. when boiling, add in potatoes and mushrooms and reduce to a simmer, cover, leave to simmer for maybe half (at least, until the baby potatoes are soft) or even better for an hour if you have time.
8. ten minutes before you want to serve, place fillets of chunky white fish on the top of the tomato stew mixture (the bulk of all the vegetables will prevent the fish from sinking into the mixture). we had haddock yesterday, but any chunky white fish will do. if your fish fillets have skin on them, all the better, sit them skin side down) and replace the lid of the casserole.
9. leave fish to cook in the steam of the casserole for approximately ten minutes.
10. serve in warm bowls, with crusty bread if you have some crusty bread.
