Serves: 4
Red snapper may not be available to everyone in which case choose a firm-fleshed white fish such as stone bass, cod, hake, halibut or pollack. I love roasted carrots so much so that I rarely cook them any other way now. Most supermarkets stock the beautiful coloured heritage carrots, but of course you can swap them for the ordinary variety. Waitrose and Marks and Spencer sell sumac which is a wonderful tart, lemony spice, made from the crushed berries from the Rhus family of plants.
Ingredients
- For the roasted carrots
- 600g heritage carrots, scrubbed but not peeled
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 1 large sprig rosemary, cut into 2
- Pinch chilli flakes
- 3 small preserved lemons, halved, pips removed and finely chopped
- For the red snapper
- 4 fillets red snapper, about 150g each
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon sumac
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, roughly crushed
- ½ teaspoon mild pimenton
Method
- Heat the oven to 200˚c, fan oven 180˚c, mark 6. Place the carrots in a roasting tin and mix with the olive oil. Scatter over the garlic, rosemary and chilli flakes and season with a touch of salt and ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for 40-45 minutes, stirring them once or twice during cooking. Remove the rosemary sprigs and leave to cool for a few minutes before squeezing out the soft centres of the garlic cloves. Mix into the carrots along with the preserved lemons. Set aside at room temperature.
- For the fish, place the red snapper fillets in an oiled ovenproof dish and rub with the olive oil. In a small bowl mix together the spices, adding a good pinch of salt. Rub the spice mix all over the fish fillets. Cook in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the fish is just cooked through. If the fillets are quite thick it may take 3-4 minutes longer cooking time. If you want to warm the carrots through put them back in the oven for the last 5 minutes. Serve immediately with the roasted carrots and lemons.
