Steamed Thai-style Sea Bass and Rice

This is one of those dishes that’s really exciting to eat – the flavours are really fragrant and light. Steamed fish and rice is always a winner, especially with Thai flavours. If you’ve got a good fishmonger, using other fish like red mullet, prawns or squid to mix things up a bit is a great idea. It’s easy to put together and loads of fun to serve the tray at the table.

ingredients

for the Thai paste
• 2 large bunches of fresh coriander, leaves picked and stalks reserved
• 2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 2 fresh red chillies, halved and deseeded
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 6 tablespoons soy sauce
• juice and zest of 2 limes
• 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
• 400g/14oz basmati rice
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 x 170g/6oz sea bass fillets, pinboned and skin scored
• a handful of sugar snap peas or mangetouts
• a bunch of spring onions, outer leaves discarded, trimmed and finely sliced
• 1–2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
• 1 lime, quartered

directions

1
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. In a food processor or liquidizer, whiz up the coriander stalks, half of the coriander leaves, the ginger, garlic, halved chillies, sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice and zest and the coconut milk. This will give you a lovely fragrant Thai-style paste.
2
Cook your rice in salted, boiling water until it’s just undercooked, then drain it in a colander. Scoop it into a high-sided roasting tray. Pour your Thai paste over the rice and mix it in well, then shake it out flat. Lay the sea bass fillets on top, scatter over the sugar snap peas or mangetouts, then cover the dish tightly with tinfoil and put it in the preheated oven for around 15 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle over the spring onions, the sliced chilli and the other half of the coriander leaves. Divide between your plates with a wedge of lime.

Source: Cook with Jamie