Tapenade is a mediterranean type ‘pate’ made from sundered tomatoes, olives and basil. It has a punchy flavour and works well with almost anything; chicken or fish being my favourite to have it with. If you have some left over, it can store in the fridge for a while so you can keep it for another recipe. It even works well stirred into pasta. This fish goes perfectly with some healthy summery roasted vegetables, using up leftover ones in the fridge, which is well complimented with a zingy fennel, lemon and apple salad.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

For the roasted veg:

• Any vegetables you want/ have: I used, 1.5 courgettes, 2 red onions, 1/4 butternut squash, 5 tomatoes and 2 peppers
• 5 garlic cloves, skin kept on
• A large handful of basil leaves
• 1 tbsp tomato puree mixed with a few tbsp of hot water and 1 stock cube added to this mix

For the fish:

• 4 pieces of fresh cod or haddock fillets

For the tapenade:

• 7 Sundried tomatoes and 2 tbsp of oil from the tomatoes
• 1 large handful of black olives
• 2 large handfuls of basil leaves
• 2 garlic cloves peeled
• 6 anchovy fillets from a jar or tin
• 2 tsp capers

For the salad

• 1 fennel, very thinly sliced, using a mandolin if you have one
• 1 apple, peeled and cored, thinly sliced
• Half a white onion, thinly sliced
• 1 handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Half a lemon, juiced
• 1 tsp honey
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large handful basil leaves, torn
• Parmesan shavings, to garnish

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Chop up all the roasting vegetables into bite size pieces. In a large roasting tray, put in all of the vegetables and garlic. Drizzle over a generous amount of olive oil. Season.
3. Put into the oven for around 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
4. To make the tapenade, put all of the ingredients into a food processor or blender with a few dashes of water to help blend, and blend until a paste. Season.
5. To make the salad, put the fennel, apple, onion, basil leaves and walnuts in a bowl. 
6. Mix together the lemon juice, honey, cider vinegar and olive oil and combine for the dressing. Pour this over the fennel, apple, onion, basil and walnuts and keep in the fridge until serving. Add parmesan shavings to garnish.
7. Get the fish fillets and lie on a baking tray with grease proof paper or foil, sprayed with a little oil. Pat the fillets down with kitchen towel to remove excess water. Season the fish.
8. Using a spoon, spoon over a generous amount of the sundried tomato and olive tapenade over the fish fillets.
9. Bake in the oven, still at 200 degrees, for 20 minutes or until fully cooked.
10. Now the vegetables and fish should be done. Sprinkle the basil leaves over the vegetables and mix them with the tomato puree and stock water.
11. Serve with the salad.