Hake with coco beans, spinach and green sauce

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Tom Noest pairs hake with braised coco beans in an aromatic stock of garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage. He serves the simple dish with a fresh green sauce similar to a salsa verde

First published in 2021

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

  • 2 hake fillets

Coco beans

Green sauce

Equipment

  • Food processor or blender

Method

1

Preheat an oven to 150ºC/gas mark 2

2

Place the coco beans in a baking dish and pour in enough water to just cover them. Drizzle in a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil; it should sit on the top of the water

  • 60g of fresh coco beans
  • extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
3

Add the garlic, herbs, chilli and tomatoes then cover with a layer of parchment paper, followed by a second layer of tin foil. Don’t add salt to the beans until just before serving as it can make them unpleasantly firm and hard. Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until the beans are tender

4

Meanwhile, make the green sauce. Place all the ingredients in a blender and pulse a few times into a coarse sauce, adding just enough oil to achieve a pouring consistency. Season with salt if you think it needs it and adjust the amount of vinegar to your liking

5

Once the beans are ready, discard the herbs and chilli. Transfer the beans to a saucepan with a little bit of the cooking liquor

6

Add the spinach to the hot beans and stir until it has wilted. Add the lemon juice to taste, then either keep warm or reheat before serving

  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 4 handfuls of spinach, washed and roughly chopped
7

If you have access to a wood-fired oven or pizza oven, heat it to 350ºC, otherwise heat your oven to the highest temperature it will go. Place the hake fillets skin-side up on a baking tray and cook until the flesh is white and opaque throughout and the skin is blackened and blistered (around 5-10 minutes, depending on the heat of your oven and size of the fillets)

  • 2 hake fillets
8

Divide the beans between 2 plates, place the hake on top of the beans and spoon over the green sauce

First published in 2021

Tom Noest is the chef behind The Bell in Langford, The Little Bell in Soho Farmhouse and The Lamb Inn in Shipton.

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