i love love love trying new recipes and discovering that they’re good. when we invited our friends nat and al round for dinner, i knew i wanted to cook something involving fish. unfortunately, i didn’t plan ahead and we couldn’t get some nice fresh fish from the farmer’s market or the fishmonger’s down the street. but that’s ok – the flavours in this dish were enough to keep a slightly bland fillet of cod from being too boring.
you could probably do with a smaller amount of brown rice — we used a shortgrain rice that took ages to cook but fluffed up to multiple times the uncooked size. but now i have yummy leftovers for lunch today 
pan-fried pollock with aubergine, mint, and chili rice
this serves 4 with leftovers and is healthtastic.
the particulars:
- 300g brown rice, well rinsed
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large aubergine, chopped
- 1 large onion, thinly sliced
- 75g baby spinach, roughly shredded
- 1 tbsp ground coriander
- 2 long red chilis, deseeded and thinly sliced
- grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, plus lemon wedges to serve
- 20g fresh mint leaves, picked and roughly chopped
- 4 skinless pollock or cod fillets
- cook the rice for 25 minutes or until fluffy, then drain.
- meanwhile, heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. add the aubergine and cook, stirring, for 3-5 minutes until golden. turn the heat down to medium-high, add the onion and stir for 5 minutes until the onion is lightly caramelised. add the ground coriander and chili and stir for 1 minute.
- add the drained rice, spinach, and 4 tbsp boiling water and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes until the spinach wilts. season, then stir in the lemon zest and juice, and the mint.
- heat a large pan over a medium-high heat. rub the fish with the remaining oil, season with salt and pepper, then cook for 3 minutes each side until just cooked through.
- divide the rice among the plates, top with the fish and serve with extra lemon wedges to squeeze over.
lesson learned: as i said before, using a nice piece of fresh fish would have easily made this meal even better.
This was the tastiest thing I had eaten in a long time. I absolutely love aubergine and the rice was amazing. The mint was delicious too! Molly accidentally gave me one of the boys’ portions, but I forced myself to tuck it all away.. Good work Molls.