Before I begin with this super tasty recipe, I must apologise for this terrible photo! The light in our kitchen was truly awful last night and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get a decent snap. So one day I’ll make it again and get a photo in better light!

We decided to make this for a day-after-Valentine’s meal, as we were out with friends on Valentine’s night itself. It’s a super tasty and really healthy recipe, although we undid all of that by following it with Mississippi mud pie! 🙂 We halved the original amounts shown below as there were only 2 of us, but it would be a great meal to cook for friends. This recipe comes from Gordon Ramsay’s ‘World Kitchen’.

Ingredients (serves 4)

4 thick cod fillets, with skin (about 175g each)
3 tbsp olive oil
100g blanched almonds
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
A pinch of dried chilli flakes, to taste
6 ripe beef tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
1 bay leaf
Sea salt and black pepper
85g good quality white bread (about 2 slices), toasted and roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to finish (we left this out!)
3-4 tbsp water
3 tbsp sherry vinegar

Method

1. Check the cod fillets for pin bones and pull out any that you come across. Chill until ready to cook.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the almonds and garlic and fry gently until lightly golden. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate.

3. Add the onion to the pan and fry gently until lightly golden. Add the dried chilli flakes, tomatoes and bay leaf. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, until the tomatoes are soft.

4. Meanwhile, put the almonds and garlic, bread and parsley into a blender or food processor with 1 tbsp of water. Blend to a rough paste and then stir into the tomato mixture, along with another 2-3 tbsp of water. Add the sherry vinegar, then taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

5. Arrange the cod fillets in an ovenproof dish, pour over the romesco sauce, cover the dish loosely with foil and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish, until it is just done. Serve straight from the dish, sprinkled with a little chopped parsley if you like.