Pan-Fried Leatherjacket with Tapenade, Tomato and Basil

With the hot summer weather lingering well into March, it has been difficult to feel inspired to cook anything at all. However, seafood has proven to be a good option this year, now that B18 has gone away to uni (he doesn't like seafood, so we haven't cooked it very often in the past).

The latest offering comes from Mark Best in the Sydney Seafood School Cookbook.

Sydney Seafood School was opened in November 1989....Almost all of Australia's leading chefs have taught at the Seafood School.

The book is full of recipes from various well-known Aussie chefs; some of the recipes are easier than others, but they're all packed with tasty, sustainable ingredients.

Our Journey with the Recipe:

We substituted the leatherjacket with snapper (as suggested by Best in his alternative species box at the bottom of the recipe) but I didn't add the tapenade to the top of the cooked fish (couldn't be bothered to make it to be honest with you!)

The tomato salsa was very strong thanks to the scallions overpowering the rest of the ingredients.

I also blanched some bok choy leaves we had leftover in the fridge to act as a bed for the fish.

We still haven't mastered our cooking times when grilling/frying fish, so the fleshy bits where lovely, but the thinner sections were too dry *sigh*.

Looking back over the photos, I may not have used enough tomato to scallions in the salsa...there's always next time!

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