Roast ling with salsa verde

Fancy a healthy meal without needing to break a sweat in the kitchen? Roast fish is always easy to make, high in protein and low in fat.

Yesterday I invited my colleague over and opted exactly for that, a quick meal with fish as the centerpiece. Seeing I had a fillet of ling in the fridge, I decided to make roast ling with salsa verde and garlic breadcrumbs.

Ling is an extraordinarily ugly fish, which is the reason why you will only ever find it filleted. It grows to about 1.5 metres and 20kg in weight. It is a strong, textured fish with no bones.

Roast ling with salsa verde

PREP TIME: 5 min | COOK TIME: 25 min | TOTAL TIME: 30 min | YIELDS: 2 servings

Ingredients:

• 400g ling fillet (or two ling fillets roughly 200g each)
• Bunch of fresh Thai basil
• Bunch of fresh Italian parsley
• Bunch of fresh Italian basil
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Half the juice of a fresh lemon
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to season
• 2 pieces of bread (best left overnight, for the garlic breadcrumbs)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. Roast fish. Prepare fish by lining baking paper over a roasting tin and resting it on top. Drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some sea salt, and crack some black pepper over the fish. Roast in oven for 20 minutes (or less if it is a smaller fillet).
3. Make the salsa verde. Place thai basil, basil, 1 clove garlic, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice in a food processor and add a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of cracked black pepper. Blend until a smooth paste forms. Taste and adjust to your own liking.
4. Make the breadcrumbs. Take some overnight/stale bread and put into a food processor, along with two garlic cloves. Pulse until bread crumbs form.
5. Toast the breadcrumbs in a saute pan over medium heat with a knob of butter. Keep stirring until they become golden brown. Set aside to cool (NB: store the remaining cooled breadcrumbs in an air tight jar so that they can be utilised on other occasions).
6. Remove fish from oven once down and transfer to a serving plate. Drizzle the salsa verde on top and generously topple the freshly made bread crumbs. Serve with a side salad.