Smoked haddock with white beans and parsley
White beans and parsley:
- 4 cups soaked dried white beans (cannellini or navy)
- 3 thick slices of lean bacon, roughly chopped
- few sprigs of fresh thyme
- ½ head of garlic, cut horizontally
- handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped
- 2 thick slices of lean bacon, chopped
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 skinless fillets of smoked haddock, about 1¼ pounds in total
- 2 tablespoons butter, cut in pieces
- few sprigs of fresh thyme
- handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
Instructions:
A little bacon enhances the flavor of smoked fish in this surf-and-turf combination. If you cannot find smoked haddock, you can substitute other smoked white fish.
- Put the beans, bacon, thyme, and garlic in a pan and add water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil until the beans are soft, 1–1¼ hours. Use a slotted spoon to transfer half the beans to a blender. Add a ladleful or two of the cooking liquid and blitz to a fine purée. Transfer the purée to a clean saucepan. Drain the remaining beans, reserving the cooking liquid, and add to the purée. Remove and discard the bacon, thyme stems, and garlic. Stir to mix the beans with the purée, adding a little more cooking liquid if the mixture is too thick. Keep warm.
- For the smoked haddock, fry the bacon in half the oil until crisp. Drain on paper towels.
- Heat another frying pan with the remaining oil until hot. Add the haddock fillets to the pan and fry for a minute. Add the butter, then throw in the thyme sprigs and parsley leaves. As the butter melts and foams, spoon it over the fish to baste. Fry until the fish is just cooked through, 1–2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat and transfer to a warm plate, reserving the excess butter and oil. Let the fish rest for a couple of minutes.
- Meanwhile, reheat the beans if necessary, and stir through the chopped parsley. Season to taste with black pepper. (You probably won’t need salt because of the bacon and haddock.) Spoon the beans onto warm plates and lay the smoked haddock fillets on top. Add the crisp bacon and a little oil and butter from the pan in which you cooked the fish. Garnish with parsley leaves and serve.