Cod & Basil Stuffed Peppers

Cod & Basil Stuffed Peppers Ingredients

• 2 Cloves of Garlic (I always used smoked garlic and  I also quite like garlic you may only want to use one clove as well )
• 1 Large Fresh Fillet of Cod  (You’ll need around 200g do worry if your a little over or under)
• Small Hand Full of Pine Nuts
• 3 Medium Mushrooms
• 2 Shallots (A Small Onion would be fine)
• Hand full of Fresh Basil
• 3 Halves Of Pepper
• A Splash of Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper
• Lambs Lettuce (This is for greenery you can see in the middle)

This is my go to meal, if I need a good tasty, low carb nutritious meal. Its really easy to make and there’s not an empty calorie in sight! It’s also a good one for cooking on mass for BBQ’s and things as they are just a yummy cold. The recipe can also be messed around with quite a lot you can add things like rice, cheese or chilli’s  to the recipe to liven things up a bit. I also find it a great way to use up all those suspect about to go mouldy vegetables that are in everyone’s fridge.

1. Firstly gut your peppers remove all the seeds and white membrane. Wash the peppers under a tap to get rid of any hard to reach seeds.
   

   ---

2. Now if you don’t want to get all chefy just soften the peppers by sticking them in the microwave for 3 or 4 minutes, and skip this little bit because we are going to start by charring the peppers. This can be done either with a Cook’s Blowtorch or if you don’t have a blow torch you can just char them over the naked flame on your gas cooker. (I prefer to use the Cook’s Blowtorch method because I’m a man and burning stuff with a little Blowtorch is fun!)
   

   ---

3. As much as burning things is fun you don’t to totally incinerate them. Just char them until the pepper begins to soften and theres a few burnt patches on the skin of the pepper. Once this is done put the peppers to one side and preheat your oven to 180c or gas mark 6.
   

   ---

4.  Now for the stuffing. Finely chop your garlic and fry off the cod with the garlic and a splash of olive oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. When the cod starts to cook, begin to break it up into flakes in the frying pan. It won’t take long to cook. But while its cooking chop the mushrooms into small pieces and finely chop the shallots add them both to the frying pan. Then salt and pepper to taste.(I normally add a few chilli flakes as well at this point)
   

   ---

5. Continue to cook on a medium heat until the mushrooms and shallots have softened this should happen after 3 or 4 minutes. Now its time to add your pine nuts and cook for another few minutes. You can either roughly chop your basil and add it with your pine nuts or you can line the inside of your peppers with the basil leaves. (I prefer to add them with the pine nuts)
   

   ---

6. Now stuff your peppers  and pop them in the oven for a 5 or 6 minutes and thats it! (To be honest if I actually prefer my pepper to still have a bit of a crunch so I generally don’t even put them in the oven)
   

   ---

7. Plate it up add your lambs lettuce as a garnish and enjoy!
   

   ---

Tip Note: You can use any meaty fish doesn’t have to be cod. I’ve made this dish with Skate, Kippers and even prawns all work perfectly but as i said play around with stuffing a bit a let me know how you get on!