CRISPY BAKED COD WITH HERBY BROCCOLI, PEAS & BEANS 

This is such an easy weeknight dish, with mostly store-cupboard ingredients: pesto, breadcrumbs, frozen peas. Adding a tin of butter beans (by all means use cannellini, haricot or puy lentils if that’s what you have) picks up all the flavour from the roasting tin. Serve with crusty bread for an additional carbs. 

Serves 2 adults + 2 children

Prep: 10 minutes

Cook: 20-25 minutes 

300g Tenderstem or ordinary broccoli

300g frozen peas 

2 courgettes, cut into 5mm half moons

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp sea salt (optional)

freshly ground black pepper

4 cod fillets

4 tsp green pesto

4 heaped tbsp panko or white breadcrumbs 

1 x 400g tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed

½ a lemon, zest and juice

 a large bunch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped

•  Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.

•  Pop the broccoli into a bowl, tip a kettleful of boiling water over it and leave to sit for 2 minutes, then drain well. (If the stems are very thick, halve them lengthways.) If using ordinary broccoli, skip this step.

• Mix the broccoli, frozen peas and courgettes in a large roasting tin along with 1 ½ tablespoons of the olive oil, the sea salt (if using) and a good grind of black pepper. I like to add the butter beans at the end, to just warm through in the residual heat of the roasting tin, but if you’d prefer them piping hot, stick them in now.

• Lay the cod fillets over the vegetables, spread each with 1 teaspoon of pesto, scatter over the breadcrumbs, then drizzle with the remaining ½ tablespoon of olive oil. Grind over some black pepper, then transfer to the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes (20 if your cod fillets are quite thin, 25 if they are a little thicker).

• Once cooked, stir in the butter beans (if you haven’t already), lemon zest, juice and fresh basil and serve hot.

 

 

The recipes on these pages are taken from best-selling cookery writer and food stylist Rukmini Iyer’s new book The Quick Roasting Tin (Square Peg, £16.99).

To order a copy for £10.99 with free p&p until 12 January, call 01603 648155 or go to mailshop.co.uk. Rukmini’s fee for this feature has been donated to Crisis, Shelter and Rape Crisis South London