We are fortunate, as a coastal county, to have access to superb locally caught seafood and one of my favourites is bass. Most of us call it sea bass, but Mike Warner, from A Passion for Seafood, tells me that refers to farmed fish and wild bass is just called bass. Confused? I am. Never mind, whatever you call it, when we have such spankingly good bass being caught off our shores it seems mad not to buy it. It’s more expensive, but the pay-off is in the flavour and freshness.

I’ve detoured to the Mediterranean for flavours, with elements of Provençal and Sicilian cooking. This isn’t quite a one pot dish, but you can, if you like, pre-make the sauce base and heat it up just before you cook the fish.

There’s enough of the lightly spiced pepper and tomato sauce to serve up to four people, so just increase the number of fish fillets if you’re cooking for three or four.

You can serve straight from the pan and although you can add a side dish of new potatoes, all you really need is a crisp salad and some crusty bread.

Med-Style Suffolk Bass with Pangrattato recipe

(serves 2-4)

Ingredients

2-4 bass fillets, pin-boned, skin on

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

2 peppers, ideally a mix of colours, de-seeded and diced

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 level tsp sweet smoked paprika

¼ to ½ tsp of piment d’espelette or chilli flakes (to taste)

1 tin of tomatoes, chopped

150ml fish stock

15-20 good quality olives, preferably stoned

1 heaped tablespoon of capers, drained

1 heaped tablespoon of roughly chopped parsley

Salt and pepper, to taste

Lemon wedges, to serve

For the pangrattato:

2-3 slices stale bread made into crumbs

2-3 tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

Zest ½ lemon

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Method

Make the pangrattato: fry the breadcrumbs in the oil until crispy, add in the garlic, cook briefly then zest in the lemon, stir through the parsley and set aside to cool. There’ll be more than you need for this recipe but it will store in the fridge and is very good scattered over pasta.

Make the sauce: place a deep frying pan (big enough to take the fish later) on a medium heat and add the olive oil. Sauté the onion for 10-15 minutes, sprinkled with a little salt and stirring occasionally, until it’s soft, translucent and beginning to turn golden at the edges.

Add the diced peppers and garlic and fry for another five minutes, before stirring in the spices and cooking for a few minutes more. Now add the tin of tomatoes with their juices, followed by the stock. Stir in the olives. Don’t salt further at this stage in case the olives are very salty. Cook for around 20 minutes or until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Check and adjust the seasoning, stir in the chopped parsley and capers and keep warm.

Pat dry the bass fillets, score the skin to avoid shrinkage when it hits the hot oil, and season with salt and pepper. In another pan, add a good glug of oil and when it’s hot, put in the fish skin-side down. Press down with a spatula to make sure it’s lying flat and leave it alone for about three minutes.

Check the skin is crisp then carefully transfer the fish to the other pan, laying it flesh-side down,so the skin stays crisp. Cook gently for another couple of minutes, then scatter the fillets with pangrattato and serve straight away.

About Linda

Linda Duffin is a food writer who operates a cookery school, Mrs Portly’s Kitchen Classes, from her beautiful Tudor home in mid-Suffolk. Students are invited, in season, to plunder the kitchen garden and orchard in her two-and-a-half-acre garden for ingredients and can also book a stay as part of a course. Linda works closely with local producers, some of whom join her in teaching classes in their specialist areas. The Mrs Portly name, Linda says, started as a joke but she has grown into it. mrsportlyskitchen.co.uk