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AI-generated photograph: A crisp golden-skinned hake fillet resting on a bright green mound of crushed peas on a wide white plate, small new potatoes beside it, pea shoots and a lemon wedge

Home · Recipes · Crisp hake with minty crushed peas

British · Dinner

Crisp hake with minty crushed peas

crisp-skin hake · minty crushed peas · lemon new potatoes

AI-generated photograph

Hake fillets fried skin side down until the skin crackles, set on a rough green crush of peas, mint and lemon, with little new potatoes on the side.

Contains: fish, as written. Of the 14 allergens, only fish is in this recipe, in the hake. The potatoes, peas and other vegetables contain none of the 14.

Ingredients

  • 600g baby new potatoes, halved if large
  • 4 skin-on hake fillets (about 140g each, 560g in all)
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 500g frozen peas
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil (extra virgin if you have it)
  • 1 lemon: zest and juice
  • 15g fresh mint, leaves picked
  • 4 spring onions, finely sliced
  • 1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch for the fish skin
  • Black pepper
  • To serve: a handful of pea shoots (optional)

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Let's cook

  1. Put the potatoes in a pan, cover them with cold water and add a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 to 18 minutes until a knife slides in easily. Drain and keep them warm in the pan with the lid on.
  2. While the potatoes cook, boil the peas in a second pan for 3 minutes, then drain them well.
  3. Tip the peas back into their pan. Add the olive oil, lemon zest, half the lemon juice, the mint (roughly chopped), the spring onions, the salt and a few turns of black pepper. Crush with a potato masher or a fork until about half the peas are broken. Leave it rough, not smooth. Taste and add more lemon or salt if it needs it.
  4. Pat the hake fillets very dry on both sides with kitchen paper. Dry skin is what makes it crisp. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the skin.
  5. Heat the vegetable oil in a large non-stick frying pan on a medium to high heat. Lay the fillets in skin side down, laying each one away from you so the oil does not spit towards you. Press each one gently with a fish slice for 10 seconds so it does not curl up.
  6. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes without moving them, until the skin is golden and crisp and the flesh has turned from see-through to white most of the way up the sides.
  7. Turn the fillets over and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. The fish is done when it is white all the way through and flakes apart easily when you press it with a fork.
  8. Spoon the crushed peas onto warm plates, set the potatoes beside them and lay the hake on top, skin side up so it stays crisp. Squeeze over the rest of the lemon juice and finish with a few pea shoots.

Tips

  • Do not move the fish while the skin cooks. It sticks at first, then lets go by itself once it is crisp.
  • If your pan is small, cook 2 fillets at a time and keep the first ones warm on a plate in a low oven.
  • Cod, haddock or pollock fillets with the skin on work the same way.

Swaps

  • Cheaper: use frozen pollock fillets, thawed in the fridge overnight and patted very dry.
  • No mint: use a small handful of fresh basil or flat-leaf parsley in the peas.

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Our own recipe. The photograph is AI-generated.

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