Hake in green sauce

How to make hake in green sauce . If I have to decide on any of the fish and seafood recipes of  Basque gastronomy.

I could not choose between good Basque Hake a stew of hake , hake Koskera or that I present today, hake in green sauce. Although other recipes such as the hake a la marinera , the baked hake or the famous  Bacalao al Pil-pil are   not worth a crumb. I am deeply in love with both, and they are also my favorite peixes.

In Basque cuisine the ingredients are abundant, varied and of high quality. It is a gastronomy very similar to the Galician one where the quality of the ingredient prevails over everything. We have great fish recipes, from this same hake to baby squid, and many ways to prepare cod. Always simple, quality recipes that are prepared in a plis-plas. A healthy and very healthy kitchen.

The recipe that I present today is not the classic one that Doña Plácida de Larrea invented in May 1723. You will be surprised that it has an exact date … it turns out that there is a written record of the recipe and who cooked it.

In a letter to a friend, Doña Plácida commented on how she had cooked the hake, in sauce with abundant parsley and garnished with asparagus from Tudela, chirlas, and a dozen fat crabs caught in the waters of the Ibaizabal. Stewed hake and served in a clay pot.

The modifications came later, the people from Gipuzkoa exchanged clams and crabs for clams and added hard-boiled eggs. So I leave you with the recipe for Gipuzkoan hake without clams, it is delicious, and if you want it with clams … even richer. The important thing is that the hake is of quality, the ingredients to your liking.

Preparation of hake in green sauce

1. The important thing in this recipe is to choose well its main ingredient: hake . Go to your trustworthy fishmonger and I recommend a good one, which is cut into slices of two fingers approximately thick. At home we wash the slices very well to remove possible impurities and dry with absorbent paper.
2. If we want this dish to be eaten by the little ones of the house, we can use frozen backs without bones. As long as we defrost them correctly, that is, in the lower part of the fridge 24 hours before.
3. This is an option for the kids to eat fish. Being boneless I assure you that you will be asked for this dish more than once. In addition, they usually like hake because it has a mild flavor and a slight odor.
4. In this recipe it is best to use a fairly large clay pot where all the slices fit, although if you have a low casserole it will do the same. Cooking is slower in clay but it will work just as well.
5. Salt the hake slices on both sides. We reserve.
6. Peel the garlic cloves and chop them very very fine. We wash the parsley, shake it well so that it dries a little.
7. Then we chop it very finely with a good knife until we have about three tablespoons of it. We reserve.

Preparation of the sauce and presentation of the hake

1. Next, put the extra virgin olive oil on the fire in a clay pot or a saucepan with the minced garlic.
2. When these begin to brown, make sure they don’t burn, add the flour and cook a little, half a minute arrives. Before it takes color, add the white wine and stir well with a wooden spoon.
3. Then we add the hot fish broth, if it does not have salt it is time to add a pinch. Let it boil for a minute and introduce the chopped parsley.
4. Incorporate the hake slices together with the peas (I used a can with which is enough to heat them in the broth). We let them cook on one of their faces for about three minutes on the clock, do not go too far so that the hake does not spoil.
5. In this process we must shake the casserole gently during all the cooking of the fish so that the sauce is binding. Five minutes after turning the hake over, it’s done. We try salt, in case we have to rectify.

1. While in another fire we are going to cook the eggs. We put the eggs in a saucepan and cover them with cold water. We cook 10 minutes from the boil.
2. We should not cook them any longer since a dark greenish halo forms around the yolk that is unpleasant to the eye. With these indications you have to be perfect. Let them cool and cut into regular pieces. We reserve on a plate.
3. Add the asparagus and the hard-boiled egg to the sauce. Prawns, clams or cockles are very good for this dish. Normally I usually prepare a few cachelos or cooked Galician potatoes that will impress you.
4. For the presentation, we spread two slices on each plate. We cover with the green sauce, I love it as much as the fish itself.

Your tips and advice for a perfect hake in sauce

• We can use this sauce or cooking method as the basis for many types of fish.
• If we want the sauce to be very green, put parsley and extra virgin olive oil in the blender. We crush it well and add it at the end.
• If you like thicker green sauce we just have to add more flour. And if we want it softer, less flour. To taste.
• One last tip, do not miss a good loaf or loaf of bread on the table, the sauce is impressive.

You can see in this step by step how to prepare this hake in green sauce , one of those recipes that we carry in the DNA of Spanish gastronomy.