Thiéboudienne with Hake

📝 Ingredients

• 600 g frozen hake fillets (thawed in the fridge the day before)
• 300 g long-grain rice
• 30 g fresh parsley + 4 garlic cloves (for the stuffing)
• 2 brown onions (about 150 g each)
• 70 g tomato purée
• 2 carrots (about 100 g each)
• ¼ white cabbage (about 300 g)
• 1 aubergine (about 300 g)
• 2 turnips (about 120 g each)
• 3 tbsp groundnut oil
• 1 vegetable stock cube + 1 l hot water
• 1 lime
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• Large casserole dish with lid
• Slotted spoon
• Chef's knife
• Paring knife
• Chopping board
• Measuring jug

📖 Steps

1. Make the stuffing (the “rof”): very finely chop the parsley, leaves and tender stalks, with the 4 peeled garlic cloves. Mix with ½ tsp salt and some pepper to make a coarse green paste.
2. Carefully pat the thawed hake fillets dry with kitchen paper and cut into 4 portions. Make 2 slits in the top of each piece, without cutting all the way through, and tuck a small spoonful of stuffing into them. Keep the rest for the sauce.
3. Peel the carrots and turnips and halve them lengthways. Cut the cabbage into 2 wedges, keeping a little of the core so they hold together, and the aubergine into 4 large chunks. Finely slice the onions.
4. Heat the oil in the casserole dish over a medium heat and fry the onions for 8 min, until soft and lightly golden. Add the tomato purée and the rest of the stuffing, then cook for 5 min, stirring: the paste should darken and lose its acidity.
5. Pour in the hot water, crumble in the stock cube and add the carrots, turnips, cabbage and aubergine. Bring to the boil, cover and cook for 25 min over a medium-low heat, until the tip of a knife easily goes through the carrots.
6. Gently lay the pieces of hake on top of the vegetables, half submerged in the broth. Cover and cook for 6 to 8 min at a gentle simmer, without boiling hard, until the flesh is white, opaque and flakes apart.
7. Lift out the fish and vegetables with a slotted spoon and keep warm in a dish, moistened with a ladle of broth and covered with a large plate. Measure the remaining broth: you need 600 ml (top up with hot water or keep any excess in a bowl). Adjust the salt.
8. Rinse the rice in cold water and drain, then tip it into the simmering broth, stir once, cover and cook for 18 min over a very low heat, then 5 min off the heat without lifting the lid. The rice should have absorbed all the liquid and turned an orangey colour.
9. Spread the rice over a large platter, arrange the vegetables and hake on top and drizzle with a little of the reserved broth. Serve with the lime cut into wedges, to squeeze over the fish as you eat.