Something for the weekend…
Carrowful Tray Bake Basa with Market Veg
All of our meals here are named after places along the River Wensum and the historical city of Norwich. Carrow Road is very close to home and is also the home of Norwich City Football Club, which is owned by the famous chef Delia Smith.
If you like meals that are easy to prep, quick to cook, and delicious to devour, this dish could be for you. Ideal for the weekend!
Basa is a white fish that has a subtle flavour and we love how tasty it is. It is found in south-east Asia and is packed with protein, high quality nutrients, and the fatty acid omega-3. Even better, it is cheap to buy.
A fishmonger once told me that not many people seem to know how to cook fish. I hear this quite often. It’s a shame, as fish is easy to cook, healthy and delicious. And there is so much variety. The fishmongers are like a sweet shop to us!
We love to source our ingredients from local suppliers. While we often buy from the amazing fishmongers in the city, this time, time was of the essence, so I popped over to our nearest supermarket (Morrisons) and grabbed a couple of fillets of Basa.
New season asparagus
The vegetables all came from Mike, Debs, and Sons at Norwich Market. Our №1 go-to for fresh produce is The new season of asparagus has just arrived on the stall, so James picked some up to use as an accompaniment to the tray bake.
If you have a market near you, be sure to find the best fruit & vegetable stall.
What you need…
A big shallow roasting dish. A saucepan and a steamer (if you have one).
This dish serves two people but you can expand it to however many people you want by buying more ingredients.
2 x Basa fillets
Small salad potatoes
A bunch of asparagus
1 long sweet red pepper
A bunch of spring onions
1–2 yellow or green courgettes
A handful of coriander
1 long red pepper (or large bell peppers will do in any colour)
Chilli flavoured oil
Nice quality olive oil (we usually use Greek or Italian)
1–2 cm of ginger, grated
2–3 cloves of garlic grated or chopped
1 large Black Krim tomato (we recently discovered these and they are delicious quartered and roasted) — a large beefsteak style tomato. Just use a beefsteak tomato if you can’t find a Krim.
Multi coloured cherry tomatoes (around a dozen or however many you wish to add)
Fresh mint
Butter
What to do next…
Cover the bottom of the roasting dish with some chilli oil, and normal olive oil to dilute.
Place the Basa fillets into the bottom of the dish.
Place all of the vegetables, the garlic and the ginger into the dish with the Basa fillets and cover liberally with olive oil.
Roughly chop the coriander and add. Remove the stalks if you wish, but they can go into the dish if you like.
Preheat the oven to 180 °F (electric) or the equivalent in gas, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the dish is done.Keep an eye out to see if the vegetables are browning. After 20 minutes, stick a little knife in the fish to check if it is cooked through.
Boil some water in the kettle, then add it to a saucepan with a little sea salt. Add the potatoes and boil for around 10–15 minutes, or until they are cooked through. Add some fresh mint to the water. Drain and add a couple of small slices of butter.
Steam the asparagus for around 6–8 minutes, or 3–5 minutes for thin asparagus.
Then serve it up and enjoy!
Carrowful Basa Tray Bake is a deliciously colourful dish! Feel free to substitute any of the vegetables above with whatever you prefer. Just keep in mind that some vegetables may take a little longer to cook. Send us your pics and tips. It’s good to experiment and find what you like the most.
Pour some chilli oil into the bottom of the roasting dish and mix it with the olive oil to dilute it, covering the base of the dish.
Place the Basa fillets into the dish.
Chop the peppers and tomatoes into chunks.
Chop the spring onions into 1cm slices..
Slice the courgettes to 1cm rounds.
Have a happy weekend :)
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