Cape Hake with Jersey Royals and a Parsley and Bacon Sauce

I haven't done any cooking with Regal's great fish products since December, so it clearly was overdue. Last nights dinner was Cape Hake with a Parsley and Bacon Sauce. According the the kids the fish was perfect and the sauce was "mega".

I simply steamed the fish in a parcel of aluminium foil in the oven with a little olive oil, lemon juice, four bay leaves and a couple of parsley storks at 180C for 20 minutes. Whenever I steam fish like this I salt it to firm up the flesh. It only takes a few minutes and really makes a difference. You sprinkle salt evenly on both sides of the fish and let it stand for about 10 minutes and then rinse the salt off.

for the sauce I chopped two slices of bacon and fried them off in a sauce pan with a little olive oil. I then took the bacon out, making sure the olive oil and bacon fat mix stayed in the pan. That is then the perfect base for a white sauce. So I added flour to make a rue and the I added half a pint of milk and half a liter of vegetable stock. At this point I added the finely chopped storks of the parsley and half a finely chopped onion and returned the bacon. Once this had come through the boil I let it simmer for 10 minutes. I did this quite early in the, so I just took it off the flame and covered it with cling film. If the film is directly on the sauce it prevents it from forming a skin. Letting it stand for a few hours allows the flavors to mature. Just before the fish was ready I re-heated the sauce and at the last minute I added the roughly chopped parsley leaves.

Seeing as the Jersey Royal season has just started they just had to be used. So I served with Jersey Royals and steamed asparagus.