Recipe: Fillet of red snapper roasted in a coconut chatini crust

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Prepare this delicious fish dish using the coconut chatini recipe we posted last week, and serve with a warm dhal salad with spinach and tamarind vinaigrette.

Serves 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Soaking time for tamarind: 1 hour

For the fish:

• 4 fillets of red snapper (also known as bourgeois fish)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 240g coconut chatini
• salt and pepper

For the warm dhal salad with spinach:

• 200g lentils/split peas
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp finely chopped ginger
• 1/4 dried red chilli
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 50g fresh coconut flesh
• 100g fresh spinach leaves
• salt and pepper

For the tamarind sauce:

• 500g tamarind paste
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 2 star anise
• 2 dried red chillies
• 1 small stick cinnamon
• sugar

Finishing touch:

• 3 1/2 tbsp dry white wine
• 3 1/2 tbsp tamarind sauce
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Method

1. Make the tamarind sauce: in a bowl, pour lukewarm water over the tamarind paste and let it soak for 2 hours.

2. Crush the tamarind with your hand to remove seeds, then sieve it into a dish and weigh the resulting juice. Measure the same weight in sugar. Pour tamarind juice and sugar into a saucepan, add fennel seeds, star anise, dried chillies and cinnamon stick. Bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring and checking often so that the mixture does not scorch. Rub this sauce through a fine sieve and set aside.

3. Prepare the dhal and spinach salad: peel onion and garlic. Chop them. Shred the dried chilli. In a saucepan, fry the onion in the oil for 1 minute without colouring, add garlic, ginger, chilli, lentils and turmeric. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then add 1 litre water. Simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes. The lentils should be slightly crunchy. Drain and let cool.

4. Finely dice the coconut flesh. Tear off the central rib from the spinach leaves. Fry the lentils in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, add spinach and coconut. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

6. Season the fish fillets with salt and fry them in oil for 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove them from the pan, spread coconut chatini on top of each fillet and bake fish for 10 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, pour off the oil from the pan and replace it with the white wine. Reduce by half on a high heat, then remove from heat. Add 3 1/2 tablespoons of the reserved tamarind sauce, lemon juice and olive oil. Correct seasoning.

8. Put the warm dhal salad in a serving dish, top with the fish and pour some sauce around the salad.