Cod Cakes in Tomato Sauce

I have hated eating fish all my life. It began as a childhood fear of swallowing a fish bone and fish does not taste very nice when you chew and chew and chew and chew a piece of fish in your mouth just to make sure you haven't missed that sharp fatal shard of bone that could slip down your neck and kill you. I never grew out of it!

I have been trying hard to grow up and eat more fish as I know that it is very good for you and Mike loves it. One of my favourite cook books is Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and I found this recipe on Page 225. The picture looks so appetising and if I'm honest reminded me of meatballs in a tomato sauce. Mike was delighted that I was going to serve up fish and went routing around his wine rack for a suitable bottle of wine to accompany the meal.

The fish cakes are made with cod and I am fortunate enough to have an excellent fishmongers who comes to the local market on Wednesdays and picked up a lovely piece of cod, boned and filleted for a reasonable price. The fish is mixed with onion, garlic, fresh parsley and coriander, ground cumin, egg and salt before being fried off. The tomato sauce is spicy with ground cumin and coriander, sweet paprika, chilli, garlic, sugar wine and tomatoes and simmered to make a thick sauce before the fish cakes are added and the whole thing is simmered for about 20 minutes.

I really like cooking these 'one-pot' dishes which leave you time to tidy up before sitting down for dinner. It was an easy dish to prepare and my only complaint was chopping up the fresh herbs. I don't know about you but I make such a mess when chopping up fresh herbs and I spend days after clearing up bits from the floor!

I served the meal with cous cous and crusty bread whilst Mike chose a hearty bottle of Bordeaux, unusual having a red wine I know but the wine really suited the hearty flavours of the meal. What's more I really enjoyed the fishcakes and didn't feel the need to over chew the fish cakes in search for bones. Another resounding success for this fine book.