Kate's Fish with Harissa Butterbeans & Herb Salad

Kate’s Fish with Harissa Butterbeans & Herb Salad

Kate Austen

Featuring:

Pulses

Rocket

Tomato

Picture of fish with harissa butterbeans & herb salad

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Ragu:

½ white onion, finely diced

1 garlic clove

1 jar butterbeans (jar, not tin), drained

200g cherry tomatoes

½ jar rose harissa

1 glass of water

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Fine sea salt, to taste

Extra virgin olive oil

Fish:

1 white fish fillet per person

Fine sea salt, for cooking

Maldon sea salt, for finishing

Mayonnaise tartare:

2 egg yolks

1 tsp Dijon mustard

200ml vegetable oil

20ml extra virgin olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

3g salt

5 cornichons, finely chopped

½ shallot, finely diced

½ bunch dill and parsley, chopped

Zest of 1 lemon

Herb salad:

Remaining ½ bunch parsley and dill

A handful of rocket

A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

A pinch of fine sea salt

Kate is a chef-mentor on ITV’s Cooking with the Stars where she coached Madchester music legend turned cook, Bez from Happy Mondays. This is a recipe she gave Bez for his appearance on Cooking with the Stars.

Method:

Start by salting your fish generously on both sides. Leave it on a plate at room temperature to brine while you get everything else ready. This seasons it all the way through.
Finely dice the onion and garlic. Add a good glug of extra virgin olive oil to a wide, ovenproof pan over a medium heat. Sweat the onion and garlic down gently until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add the cherry tomatoes, harissa and butterbeans. Stir to combine, then add the maple syrup and red wine vinegar.
Pour in the water, stir again and turn the heat right down. Leave to simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the ragu is cooking, make the mayonnaise tartare. Put the egg yolks, mustard and a pinch of the salt into a bowl and whisk together well.
Very slowly, drop by drop at first, add the vegetable oil while whisking constantly. As the mixture starts to thicken, you can add the oil a little faster. Once all the vegetable oil is incorporated, whisk in the extra virgin olive oil.
Add the lemon juice and taste for seasoning. Fold in the cornichons, shallot, dill, parsley and lemon zest. Mix well and set aside.
Pick the remaining parsley and dill leaves from their stalks. Just before serving, toss with the rocket, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of fine sea salt.
Lay the fish fillets on top of the ragu. Put the lid on and reduce the heat to low. You are steaming the fish rather than frying it. It will take around 5–6 minutes, depending on thickness. The fish is ready when it flakes easily.
Squeeze over some lemon juice to finish and check the seasoning of the ragu.
Plate the fish on top of the ragu, with a spoonful of mayonnaise tartare and the herb salad alongside. Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of Maldon salt.

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

Serving

The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.

Kate Austen

Kate is a self-taught chef who won the main course on BBC Two’s Great British Menu in 2024, the first woman to do so in the show’s 19-year history. She has worked in Michelin-starred kitchens in the UK and the Nordics, and at 25 became the world’s youngest female head chef of a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, AOC in Copenhagen.

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