This dish is an undoubted show-stopper and yet doesn't involve lots of technical steps to create it, the most pivotal step is creating the chermoula marinade. Then, you can have fun playing with the spices, ready to lovingly rub the fillets in your home-made chermoula spice paste, or if you're feeling low-fuss you can use shop-bought chermoula paste.
INGREDIENTS
Homemade chermoula (see recipe)
5 x 70g sea bass fillets
slosh of olive oil
700g of baby new potatoes, halved
2 red/yellow peppers, cored and sliced into rings
2 large heritage tomatoes, sliced
50g of pitted green olives, pitted
1 lemon, thinly sliced
salt and pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
First prepare the chermoula marinade, stir the mixture and then in a bowl or glass tray rub the fish fillets with 2/3 of the marinade, leaving the rest for later. Cover the vessel with clingfilm and place the fish in the fridge, leaving it to marinade for at least an hour.
Set your oven to 180c.
In a large deep oven dish, place your potatoes inside and rub with them with the remaining chermoula and more olive oil if necessary. Make sure to add a generous amount of salt and pepper to the potatoes. Next layer on the peppers and tomatoes adding a drizzle of olive oil. Cover the dish tightly with a sheet of aluminium foil and cook for 45 minutes.
Remove the dish from the oven and strip off the foil, check your potatoes are not too hard and have softened. Place the fish fillets gently on top of the roasted vegetables, add the lemon slices and sprinkle the olives. Re-cover the dish with the foil and roast for a further 7-10 minutes, watching the fish vigilantly as it will cook quickly. When the fish is done it should be opaque rather than translucent and gently use a fork to try to flake the fish off the skin, if the fish flakes easily it is done.
Serve on hot plates with a sprinkling of chopped herbs.