Wednesday 7th February 2024
I got asked a couple times how I made the below meal, so I figured I'd write it up somewhere easy to access over and over again.
I used the majority of the ingredients listed on the Hello Fresh recipe card, except for the garlic (because I was feeling lazyyy yesterday), also I forgot the beans, and I didn't use the olive oil - I used vegan butter instead. Also I used my air-fryer. If you don't have an air-fryer, pretend every time I say air-fryer, I'm actually saying oven.
1) Background distraction.
Throw on some music, maybe a cheeky thirty minute YouTube video podcast you've been meaning to finish (highly recommend Colin and Samir).
2) Air-fry your potatoes.
Air-fryer time. Clean your potatoes, use a lil knife to remove all the gunky eyes on them where the dirt builds up. Use a big sharp knife to cleanly chop a potato in half, slice down the half, and then chop along it so you have like six to eight subsections. Too small and the edges will burn too quick, too big and they will take forever to cook so use your best judgement. Repeat for all your potatoes. 450g is around four small ones.
I like to line my air fryer with a small sheet of non stick foil sprayed with a lil olive oil. Toss your chopped potatoes in. Lightly salt and throw on at 200 celsius for 20 minutes.
3) Rest of your prep.
Slice a lemon in half. Finely chop up your parsley. You want it really small, all the stalks chopped fine. Chop under the heads of your tenderstem broccoli, then slice the stalks into halves or quarters depending on the size. Try to keep the length of the stalks the same length of the broccoli heads - looks nicer :) and you want it to cook uniformly.
4) Cook your parsley butter sauce.
Place a small saucepan on the hob, and add a generous amount of butter. Needs to be enough to baste the fish and broccoli, and also stir into the roast potatoes at the end. I think 30g would be good, but please eyeball the heck out of this. I MEASURE NOTHING which is why I'm bad at baking. Anyway, I digress.
Butter in pan, very low heat. Don't burn it. Put your parsley in, plus a crack of salt. Don't over do it ☝🏽 Remember there's salt already on the potatoes, and we want *harmony* across the dish. Squeeze a lil lemon into the sauce, to taste.
This will cook super fast, so just keep it on super low heat so it stays warm.
5) Basa n broccoli time baby.
Spray olive oil in a large frying pan. Put pan on hob at medium heat. Put fish in pan, flat side down. I recommend slicing the packet over the pan, having a bin bag prepped and open for you to drop the empty fish packet into and then immediately washing your hands, and discarding the knife/scissors you used to open it into the sink or dishwasher.
Cook the fish! Turn it over with a spatula and make sure each side has nicely browned. You know fish is cooked once it's opaque in the middle (time for the I'm not a chef/doctor/nutritionist disclaimer, don't sue me! I'm just repeating to you what's on the Hello Fresh recipe card warning lol).
Don't let the fish dry out - once it's like a hair away from being opaque and cooked, immediately add your broccoli to the pan and generously drizzle like 70% of your parsley butter over everything; keep 30% of the parsley butter in the saucepan for the roast potatoes, so return the saucepan to the hob to stay warm.
Add another squeeze of lemon over the broccoli and basa if you like things to taste super citrussy 🥴
I used a piece of regular foil to cover the frying pan so the moisture wouldn't evaporate and dry everything out; you want the broccoli to nicely soften.
6) Potatoes! AH!
At this point, your air-fryer should be done. Toss your roast potatoes into the parsley butter and add your Cajun spice mix over them, plus your honey! Stir till everything is nicely coated. Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly - perhaps a lil extra salt or pepper or honey? Another squeeze of lemon? Up to you.
7) You're done.
Once the broccoli is softened, it's time to plate! I liked breaking the basa into chunks, and gently mixing it into the broccoli in the pan, then plating it with the basa and broccoli mix on one side, and the spicy sticky roast potatoes on the other. Dress as you desire. I topped it with mayo.
Boom. Enjoy! This also makes a great lunch so I recommend saving the extra portion unless you're cooking for two!
Thanks for reading ~
