Food Friday Baked Halibut with Fresh Tomato Topping

This is the first of my Food Friday posts. Every Friday I will feature my favorite recipe, restaurant, café, or food treat of the week. Starting on a healthy note (Warning: not all Food Fridays will be healthy!), this recipe is a hit in my family, even with the non-fish lovers.

One of our delicious discoveries on moving to New England was the abundance and varieties of white fish. We even belonged to a Community Supported Fishery for a couple of years, getting 2 pounds of whatever was fresh caught every other week. www.capeannfreshcatch.org

I learned all kinds of ways to prepare the local catch, and this recipe is one of our favorites. I especially like it because it takes only minutes to put together. The amounts are very forgiving, and it is a flexible recipe. Try it on your favorite fish if there is no fresh halibut in your store.

Mild tasting and easy to prepare, cod, halibut and pollock are a great mid week dinner option.

Baked Halibut with Fresh Tomato Topping

4 servings

1 ½ – 2 lb fillet of halibut (cod or pollock can be used too)

1 large tomato, chopped into ½ in. dice

½ onion (or one small), chopped fine

2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

One big handful spinach leaves, sliced in ribbons (can substitute a small handful of parsley, basil or cilantro instead)

3 TBSP ground almonds (or bread crumbs)

3 TBSP olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and pat dry the fish and lay in a shallow baking dish or cookie sheet with an edge. (I use my trusty Pampered Chef stoneware baking dish) Mix together all other ingredients in a bowl and then spoon onto to the fish. Gently spread the topping out to cover the whole fish.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the fish flakes and is white, not translucent, in the middle.

I serve it with chopped bok choy, quickly sautéed in olive oil with some chopped ginger.