A tomato sauce is a great way to add colour, contrast and flavour to this meal prep friendly seafood dinner.

Time: 3/5
Plenty of downtime while the fish is roasting to make the vegetables 

Effort: 4/5
Fish has to be babysat, unlike chicken

The right tools for the right job

You know how sometimes you think you have a stroke of genius that ends up falling short? I had one of those moments last week. Some things went right, but I’m committed to also show my mistakes so y’all can avoid making them yourselves.

I’ve heard good things about pollock, like how they’re sustainably fished, and how they’re a lean protein with omega-3 fatty acids. I was also pleasantly surprised to see them on sale for cheap at my local grocery store, so I picked up a few filets to experiment.

I crushed some canned tomatoes and mixed in some herbs, tomato paste and olive oil. The fish went over all that, and the whole thing went into the oven. What I thought would happen is that in the three batches to cook all the fish, the tomato mixture would reduce down into a beautiful sauce.

In my hubris, I forgot how much tomato sauces like to splatter. It’s been a long while since I’ve cooked with tomatoes (now that I have, I remember the same thing happening when I made Chicken Tikka Masala and the Bolognese rice bowl). I guess this is why high-walled baking dishes and Dutch ovens exist, then. I learned the hard way why it pays to use the right tools for the right job.

The tomato sauce didn’t even reduce by that much, although it still tasted great. That tomato paste really came in clutch for giving the sauce a deep flavour, without putting in the time to develop it by simmering for hours. So I’d count that a win, or at least the amount of sauce that stayed in the pan.

The skin-on pollock was a mild disappointment, though. The flesh tasted much like any firm-fleshed lean fish like cod, but the skin was surprisingly tough. Perhaps this is the reason I don’t see skin-on filets on sale often, and I’m definitely going to strongly prefer skinless filets after this experiment.

Dramatis Personae

Served 6.

Pollock – 12x 100g filets

Do as I say and get skinless filets – the skin turned out to be surprisingly tough. Alternatively, the same recipe will work for cod, haddock, or any firm-fleshed lean fish that you like. Unlike chicken, fish doesn’t seem to benefit as much from salting or marinating overnight, and I find that the flesh takes up flavour just as well if you season them immediately before cooking.

Canned tomatoes – 800g

I was going to get diced tomatoes, but noticed that the canned whole tomatoes were half the cost and decided to do go hulk smash with my spatula and pocket the $2 in savings instead. I might have gone with halved cherry tomatoes instead I weren’t making so much food at once, but canned tomatoes save a lot of time and effort when cooking at this scale.

Tomato paste – 1 tablespoon

The trick to making a quick tomato sauce that still tastes complex and deep is to add tomato paste – which makes sense, since tomato paste is essentially concentrated tomato sauce that was cooked down at the factory.

I used to portion out and freeze tomato paste in bulk, but I don’t cook with tomato paste that often and it ends up taking up space in the freezer so these days I just get my tomato paste in a tube.

Other seasonings – to taste

A couple teaspoons of olive oil, a dash of mixed dried herbs, and a couple each of shallots and garlic cloves sliced thin also go into the tomato sauce. The sauce and the fish also both need some salt and pepper.

String beans – 1200g

Always eat your veggies! String beans are one of the most meal prep friendly vegetables out there, and they make frequent appearances on my meal prep rotation just like Napa cabbage.

When working with large quantities of vegetables, I often find it easier to blanche them before moving on to sauté. I only add finely minced garlic at the very end to preserve their pungency (the same trick I used in my Shiitake and Zucchini sauté), and likewise reserve the lemon juice until after the heat is off to avoid cooking off the bright citrusy flavours.

Executive summary

1. Start the rice cooker, and preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
2. Combine tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, shallots, garlic, dried mixed herbs, and salt and pepper in a high-walled, oven-safe container. Mix well.
3. Lay fish filets on top of the tomato sauce, season, and bake for 10 minutes or until the fish starts to flake.
4. Remove the cooked filets and reserve. Lay in the next batch of raw fish, season and bake.
5. While the fish is cooking, wash and cut the beans. Blanche beans in salted water, then drain.
6. Sauté beans in olive oil. When done to your liking, switch off the heat, stir in finely minced garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice.
7. Combine and serve.

Play by Play

Doing a bit of prep to get us going. I forgot to show the tomato paste in the first photo, so it gets to be on center stage. The aromatics that go into the sauce get a rough chop, but the garlic I reserved for the vegetables are more finely minced.

Here’s when it started to go wrong, when I decided to use the baking sheet instead of something high-walled. Oh well, live and learn. The sauce ingredients get mixed up, and the tomatoes get an impromptu mashing with the spatula.

Fish on the sauce, salted, and into the oven. I started them off on the top rack, but moved them down to the middle when the fish started to curl up and touch the heating element.

Like so. The white discharge doesn’t look the best, but it’s fish juice and adds seafood flavour to the sauce. These filets get reserved, and a new batch of fish goes on top of the same sauce. Back into the oven.

There’s plenty of time between the three batches of fish to bring water to a boil, and to wash and cut some string beans.

Simmer until done (I like them quite soft), drain the water with the skillet’s lid, turn the heat up high, oil and garlic into the center. It’s the most practical way I’ve found so far to cook and season a large volume of vegetables.

I stir in some lemon juice at the last moment, and we’re done. It’s time to eat!

Tough skin and dreadful oven cleanup aside, this was a decent meal. Definitely a concept I’m interested to explore further in the future.

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