By Alicia Green
This recipe uses ingredients that are in season at the moment: wild garlic and British asparagus, so snap them up quickly and give the recipe a try now. Wild garlic isn’t normally available in large supermarkets but farmers’ markets and delis should stock it around this time of year. As the name suggests, it grows in the wild so there is a chance you might stumble across some for free as well.
The dish takes about 25 minutes, including preparation time, so could make a good mid-week supper. The quantities below will feed two people. If your fish fillets are quite small you can bulk out the meal by adding a tin of haricot beans to the quinoa. Pour them into the quinoa two minutes before it finishes cooking, so they are heated through.
White fish with a wild garlic crust:
- 75g of bread crumbs – make these by grating the left overs of an old loaf
- 75g of ground almonds (leave out and double the amount of bread crumbs if you have a nut allergy)
- 1 x tin of anchovies – roughly chopped and oil saved
- 1 x approximately 10 wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped (currently in season and available at Brixton Farmer’s Market)
- 250g of quinoa (try the A&C Continental deli on Atlantic Road)
- 5 x spring onions, chopped into small discs
- the left over wild garlic flowers
- 1 x bunch of British asparagus (available at Brixton Farmer’s Market)
- 1 lemon
- 2 fillets white fish such as cod or pollack (or ask for specials at Dagon’s in the Village)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200C or 180C for fan ovens.
Put the ground almonds, bread crumbs, chopped wild garlic leaves, anchovies and anchovy oil into a blender and blitz to a chunky paste.
Place the two fish fillets in a baking dish and cover with the paste. Put in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the fish is completely opaque and slightly flaky.
While the fish is cooking, rinse the quinoa thoroughly then cook according to instructions on the pack (this shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes of boiling time). Add a little vegetable stock to the water, for extra flavour. When the quinoa is cooked, stir in the chopped spring onions and wild garlic flowers. As well as looking pretty, the flowers add a subtle garlic flavour to the quinoa.
Quickly boil or steam the asparagus stems (approximately 3-4 minutes should be enough) then plate this up with the quinoa and baked fish fillets.
Serve with wedges of lemon and enjoy in the evening sun.
