Blood orange season is upon us, and it doesn’t last long, so I thought I’d share a recipe that puts the juice and zest of these red-fleshed beauties to really good use in a delicious fish dish. What makes blood oranges s0 – if you’ll excuse the pun – bloody special? To my mind, they are oranges as better versions of themselves.
The flesh and juice of these blushing citrus is so much more intense and aromatic, not to mention beautiful, than bog standard oranges, and contains more antioxidants too. While they are here, it’s worth buying a good stash of them and finding different ways to use them. Keep them in a drawer in the fridge, drink the juice at breakfast, but keep the skins and dry them out in the oven, grind them up and use as a seasoning or in baking. You could also try out making blood orange curd or marmalade to preserve the season for as long as possible.
Salad dressings and marinades are another brilliant way to let blood oranges sing, and I’m particularly fond of marinating fish and chicken with the juices. Ceviche works well too, of course, but let’s save that for another day. This recipe is perfect for this time of year because it’s comforting and satisfying, but doesn’t take hours to put together. It combines the lovely clean flesh of hake with a blood orange and thyme marinade, bitter, silky caramelised endive and crispy, smoky paprika potatoes.
If you can’t find hake another white fish like cod or pollock. This recipe was created as part of a seasonal recipe feature that ran in last weekend’s Telegraph Magazine, with beautiful photography by the brilliant Kristin Perers. You can see the other recipes, including purple sprouting broccoli pasta, rhubarb blondies and leek and preserved lemon stuffed pork belly here.
Blood orange baked hake with caramelised endive and smoked paprika potatoes
For the hake
2 blood oranges
50ml olive oil
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp good sherry vinegar
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 thyme sprig, leaves picked
pinch of chilli flakes
2 hake steaks, about
180g each
For the potatoes
200g potatoes, peeled
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 red onion, finely sliced
For the chicory
knob of butter, or as needed
1 head of chicory, halved lengthways
splash of white wine
squeeze of lemon juice
100ml good-quality chicken stock
1 tbsp capers
flat-leaf parsley, to serve
- Zest one of the oranges into a bowl, halve it and squeeze in the juice. Add the olive oil and the rest of the marinade ingredients (everything but the fish and the remaining orange). Season with salt and pepper, mix, then pour over the hake in a roasting tray, coating it well with your hands. Allow to marinate while you cook the potatoes.
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6.
- Boil the potatoes in salted water with the bay leaf. When they are just tender (after 5-10 minutes), drain and slice into rounds the thickness of a pound coin. Pour the rapeseed oil into a roasting tray and place in the oven for a few minutes. Once really hot, stir in the paprika, then toss in the potato slices and red onion. Season with salt. Spread everything out in the tray and roast for 35-40 minutes, until crisp at the edges – I tend to open the oven a smidge halfway through to release any steam. Remove and set aside.
- Turn down the oven to 195C/175C fan/gas mark 5½. Cut the remaining blood orange in half, lightly squ eeze one half over the fish, then place both halves in the tray with the fish. Cover the tray with foil and roast for 10-12 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and flaking.
- Meanwhile, prepare the chicory. Melt a knob of butter in a non-stick frying pan. Add the chicory cut-side down, season with salt and pepper and fry gently, until starting to caramelise. After five minutes, add a tablespoon or so of white wine, the lemon juice and the stock. Cover and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until softened. I like to add another knob of butter to glaze it right at the end, along with the capers.
- Remove the fish from the oven and allow to rest for a few minutes, squeezing the juice from the cooked orange over the chicory. Flash the potatoes back in the oven to warm through.
- Serve the fish with the potatoes, chicory and some chopped parsley scattered over.