Tikka-Spiced Fish...Caught Cheating

Although the mere fact that you, dear reader, are reading TGS tells me you have a healthy interest in cooking from scratch - there comes along, every once in a while, a ready-made sauce or stock or similar that surprises you and reassures that if 'cheating' is needed, then at least it can be done well.
As part of a christmas hamper, I ended up with a jar of Cottage Delight's Tikka Masala sauce; and it provided a great solution for a busy afternoon. As you will see, some prep is still needed in the recipe that I ended up throwing together, but the need for major legwork was certainly taken away by using the sauce.
Apologies to John - This will be my last fish-based post for a while, i promise!)

Tikka-Spiced Fish (Serves Two)

You will need;

1 Large Fillet of Whitby Cod
1 Pepper, chopped
1 Onion, sliced
1/2lb of Cherry Toms
1 medium Courgette, sliced
1 Jar of Cottage Delight Tikka Masala Sauce
Rub -
1tsb of grated ginger
3 large cloves garlic, mashed
2 tsps veg or corn Oil
2 tsps Tomato Puree
pinch of fenugreek
pinch of garam or gujarati masala
large pinch of chilli flakes (to your liking)
1 pinch of Panch Phoran (onion seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds)

Preheat the oven to 180c.
1. First, make the rub. combine all ingredients above in a ramekin and you'll end up with a pungent paste. smear this on your fish, and leave to marinate slightly while:
2. You gently saute the veg in a large pan. Use Olive Oil for this, and season with black pepper once golden. Don't use salt - it'll dry out the toms and courgette.
3. In a a large dish, place your soft, golden veg and lie your marinated fish on top.
4. Simply pour the sauce over the top, and bake for about 30-40 minutes.


As you can see, despite a long ingredients list, its not that complicated. The end result tastes great; creamy and tomatoey with a zingy kick beneath the surface. All you're doing really is pre-cooking and pre-marinating the fish to give a little extra flavour, and finishing in the oven. We served this with home-made flatbreads, but obviously rice or naan would be perfect also.
As for beer, instead of opting for an eastern beer I chose Bitburger - although not one of my favourite tipples, I wanted a clean, dry pils to counter the heat but with a little more body-and it certainly did the trick.

So there you go. A cheat's success. It's certainly made me realise that there are some great products out there that certainly warrant a position in your storecupboard.

www.cottagedelight.co.uk