Simple Suppers: Sun-Dried Tomato Crusted Trout

We're lucky enough to have a great Fishmonger on the High-Street in Yarm, making it really easy to eat delicious fresh fish at least once a week. One of my favourites is Trout, which has a slightly stronger flavour than white fish meaning that you can pair it with stronger flavours like I did this week for a simple supper with style.

Sun Dried Tomato Crusted Trout with Broad-Bean, Kale and Feta Salad with Leaves.

A good fishmonger will filet, remove pin bones and remove the skin for you, although it is always a good idea to run your fingers along the fish to check there aren't any little pin-bones that have been missed as it can be really off putting to find one mid-mouthful! 

Most of the work in this recipe is actually putting together the flavoured breadcrumbs that help lock the moisture into the fish as it cooks in the oven. I used a small wholewheat roll as the basis for the breadcrumbs. Although you'd often use stale-bread for breadcrumbs I actually find this sort of recipe works well with fresher bread as the extra moisture helps make the mix a bit stickier and help keep the fish moist too. I added sun-dried tomatoes (about half a jar) garlic, dried herbs, and some salt and pepper (easy on the salt as there is plenty in the ham) along with the roll in my food processor and gave it all a blitz, adding a bit of the oil from the tomatoes to help everything stick together. (You're looking for a slightly crumbly mix not a paste.) 

The Breadcrumb Mix: Wholewheat Roll, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Herbs, Garlic and Seasoning. 

The next step is to assemble the fish parcels. Lightly oil a baking tray and lay out pieces of parma ham and place the filets on top. I used two per filet but it depends a bit on the size of everything. Next add the breadcrumb mix - pushing and moulding the mix onto the top of the fish with your fingers. Finally wrap the Parma ham around the fish ready for the oven. 

Ready for the Oven

Whilst the fish was in the oven (15 mins at 180 - remember it's easy to over cook fish) I made up a broad bean, kale and feta salad to go alongside the fish. To make the salad blanch the veg in boiling salted water for a few minutes and then drain, add to some melted butter in a frying pan (don't worry too much about getting the veg completely dry as a bit of water helps make a sauce.) Lightly fry the veg in the butter for a few moments and then bring off the heat and add a dash of lemon juice to help bring out the flavours. Leave to cool as the fish finishes cooking and add little pieces of feta to the mix just before you take it to the table. 

This was a great simple and healthy mid-week dish that felt like a bit of a treat without taking too long to make! Of course it's also really easy to adapt by adding different flavours to the bread-crumb mix, in fact I originally got the idea for this supper from this artichoke recipe from Jamie Oliver. 

Something Sweet: Autumnal Blueberry and Almond Crumble Cake.

This week the weather has made a definite turn into autumn and with storms blowing around outside it seems the perfect time to turn to comforting tea-time treats. This weekend I thought I'd have a go at creating a new recipe for my own Blueberry Crumble Cakes and at the same time try out my new mini-loaf pans. It's hard to judge from the photo but the cake is actually pretty generous - large enough for two servings at least. 

These cakes are essentially delicious combination of three elements so there is lots of opportunity to play around with the element to create something new each time: 

• Blueberry Compote - I made this one with oodles of ginger, a touch of cinnamon and vanilla and a dash of amaretto liquor for sweetness. The flavours of the compote will be muted by the butter, eggs and sugar in everything else so the compote needs to be pretty feisty when tried on its own. (NB it also needs to be cooked until the liquid is almost a syrup to avoid a soggy cake!) 

• Almond Cake Mix - I love almonds in pretty much any form and I quite often use a mix of half self-raising flour and half ground almonds in my cakes. This gives you a lovely moist cake with lots of texture and flavour (for flavour real butter and plenty of eggs help too!!) 

• Oat Crumble Topping - I added a little more cinnamon to the crumble topping to pick up on the flavours in the blueberry compote although the real point of this layer is to add a contrasting texture to the soft cake below. To help get the pebbly crunch I was after I added a few drops of water to the crumble and mixed through with a fork before adding to the top of the cakes and baking. 

This batch seem to have gone pretty well - although I think I will keep playing with some of those flavours and perhaps up the quantity of blueberries next time I make these - I never can stop making little adjustments each time I bake....