I’m finding it really difficult to get excited about fish at the moment, I don’t know if it’s because it’s been cold lately but when I’m trying to think of something for dinner, fish just doesn’t seem to appeal. I’m hoping that will change as the weather warms up and, with a slight nod in that direction, today we came up with this. It was very easy, the only difficult thing being remembering to soak the beans which, as usual, I forgot until this morning. They managed about seven hours of soaking before I boiled them rapidly for half an hour and then transferred them into the main dish and simmered for a further hour and a half. Not a bad workaround.
For something relatively simple and easy to put together, it was a pretty good dish. We used cod but both felt that something firmer like monkfish would have been better. The prawns were a good addition though, the sweet flesh working well with the heat of the paprika…quite a lot of paprika as it turns out, since my hand slipped!
1 onion, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Tablespoon paprika
100ml dry sherry
100g haricot beans
250ml chicken stock
Salt and pepper
Tablespoon sundried tomato paste
250g white fish
2 large prawns
Tablespoon chopped parsley
Gently soften the onion in some olive oil and some salt for about five minutes before adding the pepper. Contine to sautee for another five minutes and then add the garlic. Cook for another five minutes. Stir in the paprika.
Deglaze the pan with the sherry and let it bubble for a couple of minutes until it’s almost evaporated. Stir in the beans, add the stock and the tomato puree and then season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce and simmer until the beans are tender (this took 1.5 hours for us but we used fresh beans, timings would vary if you used tinned).
Once the beans are cooked through, add the fish and cook for about four minutes (dependant on size, of course). Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.
We ate it on it’s own but it was crying out for some crusty bread. Chorizo would have been a brilliant addition too.
Gorgeous soup — it makes me dream of summer (wherever it is). 🙂
I have the opposite problem with fish at the moment – can’t get enough! Just about to cook some clams – yum! Your dish lokos very comforting to me though and fab colour from that ‘extra’ paprika.
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this looks like good stuff to nurse a cold!
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Those are some good looking prawns.
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I really enjoyed a couple of your dishes over the past week.
I cooked the Fish soup on Wednesday, and substituted the sherry for white wine vinegar, and then cooked it again on Saturday but this time with the sherry. No disrespect, but I actually preferred the flavour of the dish with the vinegar.
Your Spaghetti with Crab, Garlic, Chilli and Lemon made a superb starter. It was very light and refreshing, but I have to admit I used more oil than stated to add a bit more depth.
I used a good quality olive oil, enhanced with basil, and I tend to agree with you that it would need some parmesan to add a bit more bite.
All in all, I look forward to trying some more of your recipes to extend my cooking portfolio!
Thanks Nathan! I’d completely forgotten about this dish actually but it sounds perfect for this time of year. I suspect we used sherry because of the Spanish connection but I’ll give it a go with white wine vinegar, thanks for the tip 🙂
I cooked a version of the crab dish last week for a quick lunch (using crayfish) and used more oil which did make a difference, I like the sound of the basil infused oil too.