Hake stuffed with salmon and walnuts

What do you think of today’s recipe? Hake stuffed with a rich vegetable sauce, a little salmon and the crunchy touch of chopped walnuts , an adaptation of the classic Northern cuisine. It is not the first time that I prepare it although I usually do it with a powerful sauce and stuffed with seafood. In this case, I wanted it to be healthier and with the green touch provided by the accompaniment, some steamed green bean noodles. This dish admits infinite possibilities, you can prepare it with the filling that you like the most. Improvise with your favorite ingredients, from a humble ham and mushrooms, to prawns, eels and prawns or a Galician touch of cream cheese and your favorite seafood, imagination to power.

This hake dish can be done on any occasion, since it will give you very good results. Hake is a very common white fish in our kitchens and menus, due to its great presence in the markets and its versatility when cooking it. Its meat is white and soft, with a fine and tasty texture, children love it because it has the advantage that its bones are easily removed. It admits a great variety of elaborations, some very well-known such as hake in green sauce or  Galician hake .

The recipe may seem laborious, but really, I assure you it is not. You can have it prepared the day before and in 20 minutes of oven you have a 10-point dish ready, and while it is baking you can have the aperitif with your guests. In addition to being a simple dish, it is also adjusted in price, something to keep in mind at the present time. I encourage you to buy it from your trusted fishmonger, ask him to clean it and open it to be able to fill it, take a good look at where it comes from, if it is possible that it is fresh and from the Cantabrian Sea. I hope you like today’s recipe, you see that I am giving you ideas for a special occasion without having to complicate your life much. Cook in the kitchen!

Preparation of stuffed hake

1. For this recipe we have used a hake that is already clean and prepared, gutted, without head or tail, perfect for filling. It is important that you tell the fishmonger to leave you the hake to fill, there will only be the central spine that will help us make it perfect.
2. We will start preparing the filling, chop the onions, carrots into strips as thin as possible and peel the garlic cloves. In a frying pan with a little extra virgin olive oil, cook the vegetables over medium heat, first the onion and carrots and finally the garlic cloves. We let everything cook together for 15 minutes, season to taste and reserve.
3. We chop the nuts into small pieces, you can help yourself with the grinder of the mixer, it must be similar to ground coffee. We open the salmon container, which we have already bought sliced, so that it breathes.
4. We preheat the oven to 180º C for 10 minutes
5. Season the hake with salt and pepper and begin to fill it. We have to take into account that in the widest part we will put more filling and close to the tail less, because then we will tie it. We start by filling the largest part of the hake with a layer of thin salmon and sliced, sprinkle with the chopped nuts and finish with the poached vegetables. We fold the hake on itself so that the smallest part covers the large one and we begin to tie with kitchen wire, we make the first best turn for the tail, we tighten with a good knot and then we go around the hake until we reach the most part thick, closing with another knot so that nothing comes out of the filling. It must be as in the photo.
6. We will accompany the hake with some steamed green bean noodles . To prepare them, we take out the thread that they have on the sides and helped by a potato peeler we cut into long strips the size of a noodle. Cook the green beans in strips in hot water steam for about 10 minutes. Sauté in the pan with the rest of the walnuts and a tablespoon of olive oil. We reserve for final assembly.
7. We are going to bake this hake with papillote or papillot , a cooking technique in which we cook food in its own juice, thanks to the fact that we wrap them in aluminum foil. We apply a little extra virgin olive oil on the surface of the hake, I used the April oil spray, perfect for not adding extra oil. We season and chop our bay leaves that we add to the hake. We close the aluminum foil as if it were a handkerchief, being sealed, so that when you put it in the oven the wrapper swells due to the pressure of the steam and cooks the food with its vapors.
8. Bake about 20 minutes, with this time the hake will be tender and juicy. After this time we make a small cut in the aluminum foil with a fork to see if the hake is done. We serve very hot with the garnish of beans.

Be sure to enjoy all the recipes for fish and seafood that we have on the blog, I assure you that you will find a lot of ideas to make yours much happier.