Red Mullet with Potatoes in Tomato Sauce

Name: Red Mullet with Potatoes in Tomato Sauce
Prep time: 2 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 3 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Red mullet 2; Sea salt 0.5 tsp (3 g); Nutmeg, ginger a knife tip of each; Black pepper a couple of pinches; Dry white wine for the marinade; Onion 2; Olive oil 3 tbsp; Tomato sauce 1 cup (homemade, or thick tomato juice, or 2–3 tbsp of tomato paste diluted with water or wine) (200 ml); Sugar 1 heaped tsp (7 g); Salt a little; Potatoes 2; Olive oil for the dish a little; Green olives a few (optional)

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3 h

It is a curious thing. I found out by chance that the word “ketchup” has Chinese roots. Everyone knows ketchup is a tomato sauce, made from tomatoes with spices, vinegar and salt. But fish with potatoes cooks perfectly well without ketchup if you have ripe, fresh tomatoes.

The word “ketchup” comes from a Chinese phrase pronounced ke-tsiap, or from the Malay 茄汁. Literally it translates as “kōe”, fish, and “tsiap”, sauce.

Tomato ketchups appeared in cookbooks only in the 19th century. For us, ketchup became familiar when a Bulgarian sauce appeared in the shops, which was simply called ketchup and was sold in heavy glass bottles with a very narrow neck. It was always frustrating that such a tasty sauce refused to pour out completely, and you couldn’t reach it with your fingers. I still remember cutlets that smelled of childhood, generously covered in Bulgarian ketchup.

With a homemade tomato sauce you can easily make almost any dish. One of the homemade masterpieces is fish with potatoes and tomatoes. It doesn’t matter much which fish. We’ll cook red mullet in tomato sauce, fish with potatoes, with tomato and onion added.

Ingredients

2 servings

Red mullet 2
Sea salt 0.5 tsp (3 g)
Nutmeg, ginger a knife tip of each
Black pepper a couple of pinches
Dry white wine for the marinade

Onion 2
Olive oil 3 tbsp
Tomato sauce 1 cup (homemade, or thick tomato juice, or 2–3 tbsp of tomato paste diluted with water or wine) (200 ml)
Sugar 1 heaped tsp (7 g)
Salt a little

Potatoes 2
Olive oil for the dish a little
Green olives a few (optional)

Step-by-step recipe

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How to prepare and marinate the red mullet

If you happen not to have homemade tomato sauce, you can simply dilute 2–3 tbsp of tomato paste (33–50 g) with warm water or white wine, add spices to taste and salt it. Tomato paste is a product you can find in any home and any shop. In Italy they usually use canned tomato pulp, which replaces tomato paste perfectly.

An even simpler but tastier option is tomato juice. Many will say that today’s tomato juice is made from tomato paste, and of course they will be right. But if you look around, you can still find natural tomato juice. Even better, make homemade tomato juice in the fall.

Prepare the red mullet in advance: scale the thawed fish with a knife and gut them. Remove the gills and cut off all the fins. You can leave the head on.

Marinate the red mullet. In a mortar, combine ½ tsp of sea salt (3 g), a knife tip each of nutmeg and ginger, and a couple of pinches of black pepper, and grind to a fine powder.
Rub the spice mixture over the red mullet and put the fish in a plastic container. Pour over the dry white wine and put in the fridge. Marinate for 2–3 hours.

How to prepare the potatoes and tomato sauce

Bake the potatoes in the oven or microwave until soft, peel them and cut into wedges.
Fry the onion. Peel the onion and cut it lengthwise into 10–12 wedges, trimming off the root end and the tip. Pour 3 tbsp of olive oil into a heated frying pan and fry the onion over medium heat until soft. Then reduce the heat to the minimum and stew the onion under a lid until it starts to brown.
Make the sauce. Add a cup of homemade tomato sauce (200 ml) or 1 cup of thick tomato juice (200 ml) to the onion. Add 1 heaped tsp of sugar (7 g) and a little salt. By the way, fish with potatoes and tomato tastes much better if the sauce is sweet and sour. Bring to a boil and simmer everything under a lid over low heat until the sauce with the onion begins to thicken. Then turn off the heat.

How to bake the fish with potatoes

Take the marinated red mullet out of the marinade and pat dry with a paper towel. Grill the fish on a grill or in a grill pan until almost done. Watch that the fish don’t burn. Ideally, a golden crust forms on the red mullet.
Put the red mullet in a baking dish greased with olive oil and add the sliced potatoes. If you like, you can add a few green olives.
Pour the fresh tomato sauce with onion over everything and put the fish, uncovered, in an oven heated to 220°C. The fish with potatoes bakes for about 20 mins.

Serving

Put the finished red mullet on a plate, arrange the potatoes around it and pour the sauce over. Serve the fish with potatoes only very hot.

Calories and macros

425 kcal

Serving ≈ 290 g

Protein12 g11% of kcal
Fat24 g53% of kcal
Carbs36 g35% of kcal

100 g144 kcalProtein 3.9 gFat 8.1 gCarbs 12.2 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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Red Mullet with Potatoes in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

For the red mullet and marinade

For the tomato sauce

For baking