Tunisian Fish with Chickpeas and Peppers
Driving around the small, sparsely populated, windswept island of Paros in Greece, we found ourselves mid-afternoon and in need of lunch. A sign directed us down a gravely road to Cliff Restaurant, perched a few meters above a private beach with a few cabanas. The gregarious host walked us through the menu, a well edited selection of dishes inspired by the ingredients of Greece and his Israeli birthplace. A dish of seabass braised in a rich reduction of tomatoes and red peppers studded with chickpeas was the perfect foil to the salty, aromatic, crisp white wines for which the Aegean Islands are known. At home I recreated that dish adding briny capers (found wild throughout the islands) and black Kalamata olives to fresh caught Pacific Rockfish, though any mild, firm white fish will work – as long as you have a crisp, mineral white wine alongside it to whisk you away to the Mediterranean.
Pairing Notes:
For a dish born of Tunisia and Israel by way of the Greek islands, any of the saline, crisp whites from the Mediterranean islands will work. Think Assyrtiko from Santorini, Vermentino from Sardinia or a white blend from Sicily like the Planeta La Segreta Il Bianco 2020. Looking further North, the Zenato Lugana DOC San Benedetto 2020 from the TOASST June 2022 box, grown on the shores of Lake Garda in Italy, is a blend of Garganega and Chardonnay for a fuller bodied white that can stand up to the umami rich sauce of tomatoes and olives.
Time: 40 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
¼ white onion
4 cloves garlic
1 red pepper
3 T. olive oil
4 plum tomatoes
1 T. capers, rinsed and drained
12 kalamata olives, pitted
½ tsp. harissa pepper mix (optional)
1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 ½ lb. rockfish, seabass, snapper or other firm fleshed whitefish
Salt
Pepper
¼ cup flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
Chopped Pickled Peppers (optional)
Crusty bread
Finely chop onion and mince the garlic.
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion to the oil and sweat for 5 minutes until the onion is softened. Add garlic and sauté for another two minutes.
While onion and garlic are cooking, chop the peppers and tomatoes into a small dice. Roughly chop the capers and break each pitted olive into 2-3 pieces.
When garlic is softened, add harissa spice, if using, and stir for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add peppers and sauté for 2-3 minutes until they begin to soften, then add tomatoes, capers and olives and stir to combine. The mixture may be a bit dry but will become wetter as the tomatoes collapse and cook down. Add some pepper and a pinch of salt at this point (go easy on the salt as the capers and olives are both salty – you can always adjust and add more at the end) and allow the mixture to simmer over medium heat for about ten minutes stirring occasionally.
While the sauce is simmering, remove any remaining bones from the fish. If using thick fillets, cut into four even pieces. If using a thinner fillet, like rockfish, you can roll the seasoned fillet so that all the pieces will fit snuggly side by side in a pan.
After ten minutes, add the chickpeas and one cup of water to the sauce and bring to a simmer. Tuck the fish fillets into the sauce, spooning a bit of the sauce on top. When it returns to a simmer, cover the pan and let cook for about 10 minutes until the fish begins to flake. If it is quite watery, remove the lid for the last few minutes of cooking to reduce the sauce.
Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper, if necessary.
To serve, ladle a portion of sauce into a shallow bowl and top with a fish fillet. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and (optional) pickled hot peppers. Serve with a hunk of crusty bread for mopping up the sauce.