Meat free Monday – Snapper with spiced chickpeas

It’s  Monday again (just), so time for another meat free recipe, this time with seafood. Following on from my Meat Free Mondays post last week, I will try to post a meat free dish on Monday as often as I can.

I think this is a great week night recipe, quick and simply to make but full of great flavour. You can replace the snapper with any white fleshed fish you prefer, and adjust the amount of chilli flakes to suit your preference. I thought this was a nice way of cooking chickpeas, making them quite soft and creamy (though not mushy), with the tomatoes, thyme and chilli adding a nice flavour. The gremolata at the end adds a nice freshness to the dish. Cooking fish is another thing that people can often worry about and its only in the last few years I’ve become more confident and cooked it more regularly. Plus for a few years while I was at university I worked at an aquarium shop looking after and selling tropical and marine fish, and I have to admit that while I worked there I felt bad eating fish!

Snapper with spiced chickpeas

Serves 4 (recipe can be easily halved for 2 people, which is what I did)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion – finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves – chopped
• Pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 2 x 400g cans chickpeas – rinsed and drained
• 4 ripe tomatoes, chopped (no need to de-seed and remove the skin  – just chop the tomatoes into 1-2cm pieces)
• 4 x 175g snapper fillets with skin on (I could only get skinless, which was fine, though it would look better with the skin on)
• Olive oil spray

Gremolata

• ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley – chopped
• 1 garlic clove – crushed
• Zest of 1 lemon

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over a low heat. Add the onion, thyme, chilli flakes, salt and pepper (to taste) and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes, increase the heat to medium high and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat to love and cook gently for a further 10 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly.
2. To make the gremolata, combine the parsley, garlic and lemon zest in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside until ready to serve.
3. Meanwhile, heat a large frypan over a medium high heat. Spray the snapper with oil and season on both sides. Cook, skin side down for 3 minutes, turn, then cook for a further 3 minutes or until cooked through (cooking time will depend on the thickness of your fillets).
4. To serve, divide the chickpea mix between the plates. Top with the fish and then add the gremolata on top of the fish. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

Source: Taste.com.au – Snapper with spiced chickpeas