Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach

Spanish Food Recipe for Freshly Caught White Pescado Between Layers

Jul 20, 2008 Susan Morris

Savoring the daily catch of fish is central to Majorcan and Spanish culture. Enjoy recreating Majorcan pescado con acelgas using fresh white fish and local ingredients.

In Spanish Cooking at Home and on Holiday (bca London, 1976) Maite Manjón and Catherine O’Brien published their recipe pescado con acelgas, Majorcan Fish with Wild Spinach.

Over thirty years later, this recipe has been adapted using widely available ingredients to recreate this favorite recipe from Majorcan fish cookery with full flavor as Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach.

Choosing Fresh White Fish

At the heart of Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach is freshly caught white fish. Cod, bream or hake were suggested by Maite Manjón and Catherine O’Brien in 1976. Superior freshness of the white fish – caught on the day of cooking Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach - makes an ideal core ingredient.

Rick Stein in his Rick Stein’s Taste of the Sea: Over 160 Fabulous Fish Recipes (BBC Books, 1995) advises fish cooks that “Fresh fish doesn’t smelly fishy…The appearance of the fish should be bright and shiny, it should be firm to the touch and, perhaps most important, if you lift up the gill cover, the gills underneath should be a lustrous pink or red… eyes clear and bright… scales should be tight.”

Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach

Serves four

Ingredients:

• 100 ml of freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 2 tablespoons pine nut kernels
• Bunch of scallions, at least 8 spring onions
• 5 medium tomatoes
• 3 large potatoes
• 1 kg freshly harvested spinach
• 1 kg white fish fillets
• Olive oil
• 1 lemon
• Butter (for greasing the baking tray)

Directions:

1. Soak the raisins in freshly squeezed orange juice for at least 20 minutes or until plump.
2. Wash the fish fillets and remove any remaining fish bones.
3. Peel the potatoes and add to boiling water.
4. Strain potatoes from boiling water when tested as parboiled and run under cold water to prevent further cooking and to start cooling.
5. When cool enough to touch, slice the three parboiled potatoes thinly.
6. Find a baking tray, shallow sided stoneware or ceramic ovenware of appropriate size to fit the fish fillets in without overlap and lightly grease with butter.
7. Then position the sliced parboiled potatoes to cover the base of the greased tray.
8. Position the uncooked white fish fillets on top of the potatoes.
9. Prepare the spinach, tomatoes and spring onions. Freshly harvested spinach should be washed, stalks removed and leaves chopped. Tomatoes should be deseeded and finely chopped. Spring onions should be washed, tops and tails removed and then finely sliced.
10. Drain the raisins from the orange juice and mix with the prepared spinach, tomatoes and spring onions.
11. Add pine nut kernels to the fruits and vegetables and mix well. Scatter over to cover the white fish fillets.
12. In the greased tray or baking dish, there should be a bottom layer of parboiled potatoes, a middle layer of white fish and a top layer of mixed fruits and vegetables. Add a generous drizzle of olive oil over the top of Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisin and Spinach, a squeeze of lemon juice and pepper for seasoning.
13. Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisin and Spinach should be tray baked for 30 to 45 minutes in a moderate oven (180 degrees Celsius or Gas mark 4), until the flesh of the fish can flake.
14. Serve onto warmed plates as a main course.

Cooks interested in Mediterranean fish recipes may also like an alternative combination of ‘tray-baked cod with runner beans, pancetta and pine nuts’ published in Jamie Oliver: The Return of the Naked Chef (Penguin, 2000).

The copyright of the article Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach in Mediterranean Cuisine is owned by Susan Morris. Permission to republish Majorcan Fish with Pinenuts, Raisins and Spinach in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Pescados