Salsa+Olive Stuffed Pollack

********At the time this post is published, I will be enjoying myself on holiday in Thailand! However, I wanted to give you something despite being away *******

So remember a few weeks ago, when I said I wanted to incorporate more fish into my diet?

Well I have been! And I have to say that it really isn’t so scary after all to deal with fish heads-the more you handle them the less freaky.

Well okay, yes, these still kinda creep me out.

Regardless- I’m sticking to whole fish rather than fillets- its actually much less fool-proof to go with fish in its whole form, is what I have realized.

Have you ever overcooked fish fillets? I certainly have. I tried making my Coconut Flour Fried Fish recipe using pollack fillets- and they turned out way overcooked, dry and horrible! However- when I cook fish that still has its skin on- its much more forgiving on cooking time. The skin seems to protect the meat from getting over-done. So for someone like me- who usually accidentally overcooks meat, this is a definite advantage.

This is a really simple recipe. I didn’t want anything too long or complicated- (the less touching dead fish the better) so using ready-made salsa worked well for me. Obviously, you could use your own salsa, if your watching sodium content, or if you just wanted better control of the ingredients. But as I said, it worked well for me!

Also- the other good thing about choosing whole fish is that you actually get to see what a species looks like- for instance, I had no idea pollack looked like this!

Salsa+Olive Stuffed Pollack

Ingredients:

4 whole pollack fillets (or fish of choice)
3/4 cup salsa
16 olives, sliced

Method:

1. First scale your fish if needed by running a knife against the grain along the skin. Rinse well.
2. Stuff fish by sprinkly 1/4 of the olives inside and then spooning in 1/4 of the salsa, or as needed.
3. Holding the fish closed, wrap the fish in parchment paper or aluminum foil.
4. Cook on low heat with a lidded frying pan, flipping once until fish flakes easily with a fork. It took mine about 20 minutes. Alternatively, you can bake in the oven at 350 10 minutes or until done.

Serve! Depending on the size of your fillets, this will serve 4-6 people.