‘It would be wicked to combine both our projects!’
Back in December, just shortly after Honest Onion was launched, my friend Sofia Lewis Lopes, approached me with this idea to associate both our new launched projects.
‘Honest Onion’ and ‘The Shared Heritage‘.
In Sofia’s words, ‘The Shared Heritage Project’ was born from the idea of sharing projects with different people, with different personalities and different visions. Hence the invite to ‘Honest Onion’.
Sofia is a 27 year old Skimboard Champion and Environmental Engineer. Of course, combining these two together could only result in a person who loves the ocean and everything about it.
So the ‘The Shared Heritage Project’ and Sofia’s challenge to ‘Honest Onion’ was simple: create a recipe from scratch with fresh and honest ingredients, showcasing the ocean and how important it is to buy sustainable fish.
Well, I hope we don’t let you down!
Step 1 – The Main Ingredient
The ingredient? Well, you guessed it: fish. As fresh and sustainable as it could be. That was the main challenge: to use sustainable fish.
Sofia shared with us this link from the Marine Conservation Society UK which provided a lot of information on how important it is to buy seasonal fish, what the green and red months for each fish are, etc.
Please investigate with your local Marine Conservations authorities for more information.
As always, we head to our local Farmers Market and our trustworthy fishmonger advised us to grab this beautiful seabass – ‘We’ll take it!’.
Step 2 – The Exciting Side Dishes
Let’s be honest, with that beautiful seabass the rest of the ingredients had to help it shine so we decided to keep it simple: new potatoes, carrots, peppers, coriander, rosemary, garlic and onion.
Step 3 – Hands on
So, it was time to crack on!
- Preheat the oven to fan 180C/ conventional.
- Season the fish with salt and pepper.
- Slice one onion and two garlic cloves and layer it on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and layer the fish on top.
- Peel and slice the potatoes, carrots and the pepper and lay all the vegetables along with the fish.
- Add 4 chopped tomatoes (you can also use a can of chopped ones) and squeeze half a lemon on top. Chop the other half and place it on top of the fish.
- Add coriander and thyme (we added fresh thyme from the week before) and season everything with a drizzle of oil olive, salt, pepper and paprika.
- Place the baking tray on the oven for 40/50 minutes until all the vegetables are roasted.
- Remove the fish from the oven and serve.
Wine suggestion: White Quinta da Ponte Pedrinha
Tip: The vegetables and lemon on top will roast and help keeping the fish moist.
So there you have it: a simple, fresh, healthy and sustainable Roast Fish and New Potatoes.
Step 4 – Another Lesson Learned
Buy seasonal fish!
It was really interesting to understand how eating fresh fish can help their sustainability. Please buy fish during the ‘green’ months, meaning that it’s outside the breeding season and the best time to eat it.Avoid buying fish during the ‘red’ months, helping maintain stock levels.
Thank you so much for the invite Sofia, and all the best for ‘The Shared Heritage’.
Please do share your comments, tag us or use the hashtag #honestonion.
Enjoy!
xx
Honest Onion 