No wonder the heads are lopped off and the long bodies cut through into steaks.
Coming from the same order as Cod and Haddock, hake is a firm white fish but with a more dense muscle structure.
It is a real fiddle to skin and remove all the bones, but luckily, it is fantastic steamed, after which the bones and skin just falls off leaving beautiful white pieces of delicately cooked fish.
That's the fish, but what to cook it with?
What do I have?
Rooting through the freezer, I found a bag of surplus tomato sauce from a recent Cioppino. I have some asparagus and a few salad potatoes and a big bag of spinach.
So, stock defrosted in the pan, the fish steamed, potatoes boiled, asparagus cooked through in the tomato sauce and a good mound of spinach softened in butter, we have dinner.
Pour the tomato sauce into a bowl, a good mound of spinach placed in the middle, the asparagus around the edge, fish over, potatoes alongside and a little garnish ... we're done ... dinner is served!
Yes, that's some of my Icelandic ash salt over ...
