Recipe: Hake with Puy Lentils, Sundried Tomatoes and Black Olives

After a busy few weeks and A LOT of over indulgence, it was so good to finally get back into cooking properly! This dinner was one of the first that I’d made in a while, and so I packed it full with vegetables to ensure that I had some vitamins and also added some black olives and sun-dried tomatoes to help give it some flavour. It’s a super easy to make, it only took about 20 minutes – making it the perfect after work dinner.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 x hake fillets (skinned and boned)
• 1 x pack of puy lentils (I use Merchant Gourmet)
• Handful of black olives (sliced in half)
• 4 x slices of sun-dried tomatoes (chopped)
• 2 x large handfuls of kale
• Tenderstem broccoli (with the ends cut off)
• 1 x red pepper (chopped)
• 1 x garlic clove (chopped)
• 1/2 a red chilli (chopped)
• Salt and pepper to season
• Olive oil for cooking
• Chilli oil for seasoning

Method

• Heat up your oven to 180 degrees.
• Drizzle some olive oil in a non-stick baking tray and place in your hake fillets. Season with salt and pepper. Once the oven is hot, put them in and set the timer for 15 minutes.
• Whilst the hake is cooking, heat some olive oil in a pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped garlic and chilli, and fry lightly.
• After a couple of minutes, add the broccoli and toss this around in the pan so that it’s covered in the oil.
• Once the broccoli has been cooking for a minute or so, add in the red peppers and stir.
• When the pepper has started to soften, add in the kale, olives and sun-dried tomatoes – again, give it all a good stir to combine. Add in some salt and pepper to taste.
• Let the vegetables fry and once softened, reduce the heat. By this time, the kale should have wilted in to the vegetable mix.
• When you have about 5 minutes left for the hake, add the pack of puy lentils to the pan and give it all another stir to help break up the lentils. Add in a light drizzle of chilli oil to help stop the lentils from sticking and also to add some more flavour.
• Once the hake is cooked, remove the pan from the heat and plate up. Put your lentil and vegetable mix at the bottom and place the hake on top.