Baked fish with lemon cream sauce (one baking dish!)

Preheat oven to 200°C.
Place fish in a baking dish – ensure the fish isn’t crammed in too snuggly. Sprinkle both sides of fish with salt and pepper.
Place butter, cream, garlic, mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a microwave proof jug or bowl. Microwave in 2 x 30 sec bursts, stirring in between, until melted and smooth.
Pour the sauce over the fish.
Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until fish is just cooked. Remove from oven and transfer fish to serving plates. Spoon over sauce, and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges if using.

Notes

Any fillets about 1.5cm / ½” thick will work great with this.
If you use thawed frozen fish, pat dry with paper towels to remove as much excess water as possible. Your sauce will be a little thin for your liking because frozen fish drops so much more liquid than fresh – see Note 4 for how to fix this. Or use a larger roasting pan – a metal one: heats up faster, and more exposed space between fish = faster sauce evaporation.
If you want to go healthier, the cream can be substituted with evaporated milk. If swapping with light cream, increase mustard by 2 tsp.
A little sprinkle of finely chopped spring onions really adds a little something to the sauce. But this can be omitted.
This sauce is not intended to be thick and gravy-like. It is a light lemon cream sauce, suited to fish. However, it should not be watery. The actual sauce consistency will differ depending on the fish that you use – different fish drop different amounts of water while baking. If you really want to thicken the sauce, just take the fish out of the baking dish and return the pan to the oven for a few minutes. Without the fish, the sauce will thicken quickly so keep an eye on it!

Image and recipe courtesy www.recipetineats.com

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