Baked Hake

Last night was one of our nights where Garret's class means an earlier dinner.  I knew we had a bag of potatoes, green beans and wild mushrooms in the freezer (from Trader Joe), so just wanted some salad fixings and a protein to go with.  We stopped at Whole Foods and I looked at the fish counter, and decided that I'd heard of hake, had never had it, so we'd do that for dinner (I mean, you really can't go wrong with fish in our house). 

Hake is in the same order as cod or haddock, so it's a basic fish that takes on flavor well (and isn't too "fishy").  I decided to bake ours using a buttered bread crumbs with parsley and lemon juice topping.  Simple, easy, and turned out delicious both last night and today for lunch. 

I use the buttered bread crumbs topping on a variety of things (including baked tomatoes and mac n cheese).  For this, you simply get some butter (I eyeball it based on how far it needs to spread), melt it, and then slowly add enough breadcrumbs to absorb the butter and be enough to be more about the breadcrumbs and not liquid.  Then I toss in some parsley (I've found that dried or fresh works, whatever you have) and maybe some pepper. 

I salted and peppered the fish and then spread the breadcrumb topping on it.  Then I popped it into an oven at 400°F for maybe 15 minutes.  It's thin and cooks quick, perfect for a quick meal. We cooked some of the potato dish, made up a salad and called the meal done. 

Our plate:

Nora's plate*:

If you've never tried hake, check out your local fish counter.  It was really good, and for under $10 we had 2 meals for our family of 3 (small portion sizes).  It's also great for bouillabaisse if you'd like to make that, or fish n chips!  

*Nora had recently been in a little bit of a "I don't want to eat anything you give me, at all" phase.  I realized it had to do with all the time at the hospital and her stress levels (she upped her nursing by a ton), so I just rode it out.  She's now back to eating practically anything that isn't nailed down.  That plate was emptied and she ended up eating more tomatoes.