Hope you're doing great 😃

Now that I'm lucky enough to have a very affordable fresh fish delivery service, it's much easier for me to eat more fish and less of other meats, which is great if you ask me.

Among my purchases were two pieces of sailfish loin of 1 kg each. At first I thought I would slice it into fillets for breading, since I've been wanting to eat it that way for a while, but since I had coconuts to make milk, I decided to make a baked dish. Immediately, the image of the baked loin soaked in freshly made coconut milk came to mind.

I was delighted to prepare and enjoy this dish I love for lunch today.

Sailfish is an oily fish, popularly known as palagar in my region (east of Venezuela); besides having a high content of vitamins D, B3, and phosphorus, this fish has a firm and soft texture that absorbs very well the marinade and sauces, which makes it ideal for baking, which I love. I love baked fish. Today I've prepared it marinated in freshly squeezed lemon juice and garlic, baked on a bed of vegetables, and then soaked in coconut milk.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 kg sailfish loin
• 2 cups julienned onion
• 1 cup julienned green bell pepper
• 1 cup chili peppers
• 2 tablespoons garlic
• 30 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
• enough olive oil to rub the fish, vegetables and baking pan
• salt to taste
• some bay leaves

• 1 cup freshly made coconut milk

I would've given it about four or five turns of the black pepper mill, but half of the chilies were really hot 😋

THE PROCESS

This is esay. If you're one of those cooks who avoid baking fish for fear that it will be dry, sailfish is one of the ideal options to get a satisfactory result, more so if you have a delicious sauce to round off the dish.

Quick Marinade

Rub the fish loin with freshly squeezed lemon juice, salt, and finely chopped garlic, and let it marinate while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Veggies

Cut the onion, green bell pepper, and chili peppers into julienne strips. The chili juliennes are usually thinner.

Take the vegetables to the baking tray, which must have been coated with enough olive oil.

Mix the vegetables as to coat them a little with the olive oil. Then place the loin on top and drizzle a little more olive oil.

Time to add tha little touch that changes everything for good: some bay leaves.

BAKING

No need to add any water or broth. The sauce is ging to be just enough and as thick as we need it to be mixed with the coconut milk when the fish comes out of the oven. This loin took 65 minutes to bake in my little electric oven, at 400°F for the first 20 minutes, then 300°F with a lid on for the next 45 minutes.

Add the milk. I used some I'd just made, so the result was a thick sauce, creamy enough. No need to add starch.

Let it cool down...

A super important step is to let the fish cool down enough so that it won't lose its juices when cut and served. Also, during this cooling time, maybe half an hour, you can pour the sauce over the loin every ten minutes or so to ensure that the loin absorbs enough sauce; this will make it juicier 😋

I was really happy with the result. The sauce was incredible. Delicious!

I served it with rice and fried slices of ripe plantaim.

¿Do you have a favorite baked fish recipe, or you're not much of a fish lover?

As usual, I hope you found this post useful.

Bon appetite!😁

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.