Best of Europe, Cod it is !

European Fish Stew Recipe

With a referendum on the UK’s future, or not, in the European Union getting a lot of media coverage and some arguing that Britain should be leading Europe and not leaving It, I popped in to my local German global discount supermarket, Lidl, which became the first ‘UK supermarket’ to implement the minimum wage, as recommended by the Living Wage Foundation, in October 2015.

I few minutes later, I had bagged myself a few items from Scotland and across the continent and a cheap, cheerful and healthy tea (aka dinner) for two was in the making.

I served the following recipe with oven cooked potato wedges but cooked sweet potato would be a good and healthier alternative.

Ingredients:

British:

250g of (skinned) cod fillet;  20g of unsalted butter; 2 rashers of unsmoked, streaky bacon; 1 small onion; 1 clove of garlic and fresh basil leaves.

20g of Pine Nuts – I had these in the house and can’t recall the country of source.

Spanish

8 Black Olives, pitted.

Italian

1 x 400g can of plum tomatoes. I like to chop them myself, rather than buy pre chopped; 1 ball of mozzarella.

 

Method

Cut the bacon into small strips (lardons), approx. 10mm; dice the onion and garlic.  Warm a large frying pan over medium heat for a minute, add the butter and when it melts add the lardons, diced onions and garlic.  Cook for around 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, skin (if required) and dice the cod into 20mm chunks and prepare the canned tomatoes.  When the bacon is cooked and the onion and garlic softened add the cod chunks and stir fry for a further 2 minutes.  Stir in the tomatoes and their juices, increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 3 minutes,

Pit the olives, if required, and remove the mozzarella from its packaging.  Add the olives to the pan. Take the pan off the heat and tear the mozzarella into chunks before dropping into the mixture. Stir and let the hot juices melt the cheese.

Dish out the fish stew onto two plates with your potato wedges or sweet potato.  Tear basil leaves and top drop over your European Fish Stew, along with the pine nuts.

Enjoy your healthy, hearty, warm meal, with a glass or two of French wine, of course!