Join restaurant manager, recipe creator and teacher Alison Crouch, as she shows us how to make pan-fried basa fish fillets with butterbeans – a tasty and simple meal you can cook for the whole family, or portion into batches and freeze for meal prep!
This is an economical, healthy fish recipe that’s high in protein, quick to prepare, and ideal for batch cooking or meal prep. These pan-fried basa fish fillets are served with a rich tomato and butterbeans sauce, finished with a parmesan and herb crumb topping for extra flavour and texture. Whether you serve it with crispy diced potatoes or herby couscous, this easy basa fish recipe is perfect for midweek dinners, freezer meals, or cooking on a budget.
What you need to take part:
🧄 Ingredients:
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 courgette, diced
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• Pinch of sugar
• A handful of oregano, or 1 tsp dried
• 1 tin butterbeans
• Salt and pepper
• 4 Basa fillets
• A handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs (1 slice of bread made into breadcrumbs)
• 50g parmesan, grated
🍽️ Method:
1. Heat the oil in an ovenproof pan. Fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes. Add the pepper and courgette. Fry for a further 3 to 4 minutes to soften. Add the tinned tomatoes, sugar and oregano. Stir in the butterbeans. Simmer for 5 minutes on a low heat, then season to taste.
2. Place the Basa fillets on top of the tomato sauce. Simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.
3. Mix together the parsley, breadcrumbs and parmesan. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over the fish. Place the lid back on and simmer on low for 5 minutes, then pop under the grill for a crunchy topping.
4. Portion the dish into 2 to 4 containers and freeze. Defrost well before reheating in the oven until piping hot throughout. (Or use the microwave or air fryer).
5. Cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the cut of fish. Check the fish is opaque all the way through and flakes easily then eat!
6. Serve with crispy diced potatoes or herby couscous. Allow 60g couscous per person. Pour hot stock into the couscous, the same volume of liquid as couscous. Stir well and fold in freshly chopped herbs, lemon juice and season well.
🍳 Looking for more easy meal ideas? Explore our wide range of recipes in our series here:
Recipes and Baking https://tinyurl.com/Recipes-and-Baking-Series
Alison is manager of the Ferry Project Cookery School in Wisbech, which teaches cooking skills. The school supports homeless clients with hospitality training and work experience to help them live independently.
Learn more about Alison and Ferry Project Cookery School here 👇🏼
https://www.ferryproject.org.uk/
https://fascinatingfood.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/sloanalison
https://www.instagram.com/food_is_fascinating/
https://www.youtube.com/@TheFerryProject
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Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Ferryy Project cookery school and a cooking session. And today we’re going to be looking at fish and we’re going to be talking about how we can actually make it and then put it into some containers and freeze it as well. So um you can make extra portions of this and then have it for future days, weeks, months, no more than that. And the recipe today I’ve actually taken from a one pot cookbook. So here at the Ferry Project, we’re actually a homeless charity and have accommodation for homeless people. We help them get them back on their feet so they can go back out into the community, uh get jobs, live independently again. And one of the things that we do in here and sort of our key thing here is to teach the homeless how to cook. But we also get involved in community projects. And one of the community projects we’re involved in is this one pot cooking. And the recipe today has actually come from this. I’ve sort of titivated it up a little bit, adding a few extra things. Um, so that’s what I’m going to show you. And we’re going to start off by chopping some onions and some garlic. And it’s quite a Mediterranean dish, so quite summery, so hopefully that’ll encourage the sun to come out. And the first thing I’m going to do is um chop an onion. I’ve actually got two onions in this. One of them I’ve already chopped up. So, I’m just going to slice it up. Get rid of that papery th skin. And just slice it into my dish. So, I’ve already got one in there. It’s just starting to sizzle. So, we’ll add this one in. I’m using white onions. Obviously, you could use red onion if you prefer red onions and things cuz they’re that little bit sweeter. And I’ve also got in here some garlic. And I’m going to add another clove of garlic. So, I’m just going to crush that. And crushing is good because you get more surface area, more flavor, but you know, fine if you just want to dice it. Make sure I don’t lose any in the crusher. that in there sizzling off a bit. And I’m also going to add in some other sort of Mediterranean type things. Obviously, you can add in all sorts of different vegetables. I’m putting some red pepper in. So, I’m going to dice that up. And I want it fairly finely diced so that we get some nice peppery flavor in. So, just cutting it into strips. And then turn it sideways. And some nice small diced pieces. I want it to be fairly small cut because we’re going to layer this dish up and with a layer of fish and then a layer of sort of a gremlatta crumb on the top as well. And then we’re going to serve it with some herby lemony couscous on the side. We’ll get that in there. That’s starting to sizzle nicely. So, we’ll just keep an eye on it cuz I don’t want the pepper to start to scorch. It’s already smelling amazing. And I’m going to turn it down a bit actually cuz it’s it’s getting a bit excited. I’m also going to add in some corette. Also add in things like mushroom. Um you could put in a little bit of chopped oagene to make it, you know, even more Mediterranean style. Get that softening up. If you want to use different colored peppers, of course you can. Obviously, green will add that slightly more um bitter flavor, but the red gives it that nice sweet finish to it. So, I’ve also got a corette. So, I’m going to dice it. You could slice it if you want to, but as I say, it just depends how you want your finished dish to look. I’m going to dice mine because just think it mixes in a little bit better in amongst all the pepper and the onion. I want it to sort of soften down and cook. Just get that softening off. And I’m also going to add in tin tomatoes. be really nice actually as well to do fresh tomatoes, especially if you can get some heritage tomatoes and some of the, you know, yellow ones, green ones, stripey ones. That would be really colorful dish. I’m also going to add some fresh herbs. So, I’ve got lots of different herbs here. The recipes actually say states oregano to give it that Mediterranean finish. Um, but of course, you can use whatever herbs you’ve got. Use a mixture of herbs. I’m using fresh. You could use dried. Uh, if you’re using dried, you only need sort of half a teaspoon. a couple of different ones. I’m just going to put a bit of oregano in. Might put a bit of parsley in as well. Got a bit of dill. So, I’m going to be putting some fish in in the on the top to form a fish layer. Okay. So, just going to stir that around a little bit. The onion is just starting to soften up a little bit. And I’m going to turn it up now because I’m going to add in some tin tomatoes which is going to cool it right down. Just tip those in. So I’ve just got some tin tomato. Stir those in. You just swish out your can of tomatoes with a bit of water and just that add that in as well. It just helps slacken it off. So I’m just going to bring that back up. So, it’s just starting to bubble through. And I can see it’s doing that now. Just let that cool down a little tiny bit. And I’m going to season it. Going to add a tiny tiny pinch of sugar because when you cook with tomatoes, always add a little bit of sugar. Just brings out that tomatoey flavor. So, I’m going to add that in. Just spr I’m also going to add in some pepper. It’s bubbling really well now, so I’ll just turn it back down. A little bit of salt. And I’m going to add in some butter beans. Drained the butter beans, but I have left a little bit of liquid in there just to soften that tomato base. I’ll just give it a stir out. soften it off beautifully. And then the idea now for this dish is that I’m going to layer it up. So I’m going to add on a layer of fish. I’m using bass fillets, but you could use any fish. You could use any white fish at all. You could use cod, you could use pock, you could use koli, whatever is sort of fairly reasonably priced at the time. Uh if you don’t like fish, you could put on some thin slices of chicken breast. But we’re going to cook the fish in there. And the idea is the fish sits on the top. Then we’ll pop a lid on and start to steam it while we make the gremlatta crumb topping. So that’s bubbling away nicely. Probably should just taste it and check I’m happy with the seasoning because obviously once the fish is on the top, I don’t want to stir it cuz I don’t want to break the fish up into it. I want the fish to be a layer on the top because I’ve got then a sort of almost like a fish table if you like to put the gremla crumb which will sit on the top and then we’ll finish it off and that crumb will go slight slightly crunchy to give it another texture. Yeah, that’s good. You really taste the herbs coming through as well. So, I’ve got my basic billets here. I’m just going to put those along the top. So, already you can see really, really lovely colors coming through. Okay. So, just set that on there and I’m going to just turn it up a notch and I’m going to pop the lid on. I’m just going to give that a couple of minutes where it won’t take very long um to just start to steam. So the bottom of the fish will just gently cook in the tomatoy sauce. The top’s just going to gently steam off in um the steam that’s coming off the liquid. So while that’s doing that, I’m going to make a grammala crumb. So grammalatta is sort of an Italian um lemon, parsley, and parmesan type sauce that and bit of oil that you stir into dishes to give it a really lovely flavor. We’re going to do a crumb to sit on the top of the fish. So, I’ve got some breadrumbs, some just any, you know, fresh breadrumbs. I used fresh bread this morning, but if you’ve got, you know, bread that you need to use up, it’s a really good way of using up leftover bread. You can always whiz it and breadcrumb it and bag it up and keep it in the freezer and just pull breadcrumbs out when you need them. Um, I do this quite a lot, have breadcrumbs in the freezer for things like um meatballs, burgers, that sort of thing as well. Um, so adds moisture to things. So, breadcrumbs. I’ve got some lemon rind. Um, so I’m using a lemon. So, I’m using the lemon rind in this. And then the lemon juice is going to go into the cuscus that we’re going to serve alongside the fish. So, I’m just going to add my lemon rind to that. And then I’ve got some parmesan or granapadano is cheaper if you wanted to use that. I mean, you could use any leftover cheese. If you’ve got ends of cheese left in your fridge, just grate them up. chop them up and stir them into this. You know, any any end bits of cheddar, Stilton, even some soft cheese chopped up into this is really nice as well. And we’re going to add some parsley. Um do like to just pull herbs apart, but a rougher surface area and more flavor. But because we want this quite small, I’m just going to be quick. Just going to chop that up. And I’m using Don’t waste anything. Just give that a bit of a mix up. Got that topping. This topping is really good for anything. You know, you could could put it on chicken. You can put it on fish, on just grilled fish, pan fried fish. Adds a nice topping um on onto pasta dishes and all sorts of things. really nice extra sort of whizz of flavor in there. So, that’s that done. That’s ready to go on. I’m just going to have a little look at the fish and see how it’s doing. There it is. It’s cooking nicely. The bottom bit is starting to cook quite nicely. The top needs a little bit longer before I put that on. So, we’ll just give it a little bit longer. And while that’s just continuing to simmer away, I’m going to make the couscous. And cuscus is really, really simple. And it’s something you can just do at the last minute. So, all I’ve got here is it’s usually about 60 g of couscous per person and about the same amount of liquid. So, I’ve got I’m doing two lots here. So, I’ve got about 120 grams of couscous here. I’ve got that much vegetable stock. Of course, you could use chicken stock if you prefer. I’m just going to stir that in. I’m going to turn back in here cuz then I’ll have a bit more room. And then this is where the lemon comes in. So I’m not wasting any of the lemon. I’ve used the rind in the grammala and I’m going to use the juice in the cuscus. So, we’ll juice the lemon. And couscous is so versatile. Such an easy, simple, last minute thing you can make. And you can use it hot, you can use it cold, you can use it as a sort of salad alongside barbecue dishes, grilled dishes, and so on. And you can actually freeze couscous. So, if you made too much couscous salad, you could actually put it in the freezer for another time. Best way to freeze it is to sort of spread it out a bit. Um, freeze it and then back it up because you have to be careful it doesn’t all clump in freezer. Just give that a juice. And we’re going to stir into the cuscus. Give it that nice lemony, summery Mediterranean zing. And we’ll let that stand. And obviously cuscus is going to soak up uh the liquid. And I’m going to add loads of fresh herbs to it. So I’ve got a whole mixture of herbs here that I’m going to add in. So I’ve got some um I’ve got some oregano in here. I’ve got parsley in here. I’ve got a bit of mint in here. I want to make it really herby. So just chop all them all. That mint smells lovely. Chop it all up. And got so so much flavor in this dish, but you’ve also got a huge amount of different nutrients. So obviously, you know, you’ve got your protein from the fish and the butter beans, you’ve got some carbohydrate, you’ve got all those vitamins and minerals in there as well. And a really good flavor. A stir around. I’m going to season it just a little bit. Sure I get all those herbs in. Some pepper in there. Get some herbs in. I’m sorry to go with those herbs. Best thing about cooking, you have to taste it all the time. Just needs a little bit longer to stand. You’ll know when it’s done cuz it’s soft. So, I’ll let that just stand for a few minutes. I’m going to go back to the fish and I’m going to put the topping on. It’s bubbling away nicely. I don’t want to give it too much of a stir because I don’t want to disturb the fish. Just going to sort of give it a bit of a around the edge. And I’m going to put on the gremlar to cr. So I’m just using the fish almost as a base to sit it on. And I’m going to sit that on the top like that. Look at that. Lovely. It’s almost bit like a savory crumble really. So obviously it’s not finished yet. We need to now finish making sure top and we want that granala to cook. Now there’s two three even different ways you can do this. Um with the one pot cooking book everything is done in one pot on the stove pot. Um so the way I finish that this off then is I just put the lid back on and just let it cook through. Um you can use the grill. So if I I could leave this a little bit longer simmering. Make sure the fish is cooked through. put the grammar on the top. Then I could put it under the grill if I didn’t want to turn my oven on. Um or I could put it in the oven and just finish it off in the oven. If you don’t want to have to turn your oven on, you could of course finish it in the air fryer as well. So, four ways of doing. So, I’ve actually got one in here that I put together a few minutes ago that’s been in the oven and it’s gone nice and golden. I’m going to swap these over. So, I haven’t got the lid on in the oven because I want that heat to penetrate directly on. And that is now cooked. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you how I would plate it up. And I’ll also show you about freezing it and talk to you about that. So, I could of course serve this straight away. So I’ll I’ll do that first. So I’ve got some cuscus here that already made. So I could just freeze this cuz I could put that into containers and freeze it. Um or I could freeze myself some meals to put into freezer to pull out another day. So I could put some cuscus in the bottom and then I can put my fish on the top of that. So we just pull this out. So cuz I want the fish to stay on the I’m just going to very gently ease the fish over and I’m going to put a bit of the sauce on the bottom like so. And then cut the fish container. And then I’m going to put the fish on the top. Um, and then I can seal that up, let it cool, obviously seal it up, and then I can freeze it for another day. Or I could have some now. Might use this cuscus for now. So, put the cuscus down one side of the plate. And then I’m going to again I want the fish on the top. So I’m just very gently easing the fish off and putting Look at those lovely vegetables. Lovely color. And then I’ll put a piece of fish over the top. Like so. A little bit more sauce around the edge there. And then we’ll garnish it with a bit of herb. It’s got oregano. Quite a lot of oregano in it. So put on And maybe a bit of dill around the edge. And so that is basil with butter beans in a Mediterranean sauce with a lemony couscous and herbs. Loads going on. Absolutely delicious. Um I use this quite a lot in one pot. It always goes lots of other recipes. We’ve also written a cookery book. So you know we’re all about the homeless and helping support the homeless. So, we have written a cookery book. Lots of recipes, 40 recipes in here for different seasons of the year. And all proceeds go to help the homeless of um Finland. And you can actually buy it on Amazon. So, if you go on Amazon and just put my name in, the book will come up um and you can get 40 more recipes from there and be supporting the homeless as well. So, that would be really brilliant. We also run lots of cookery classes here. So if you wanted to attend One Pot, if you live in Whisby Beach or March and you want to come to One Pot cooking, uh or of our other courses, so we have things like Thai cooking, sushi, um pasta making, bread making, we have cookandos in the evening, you just need to go on our website which is ferrypro.org.uk or follow us on social media and loads of information is on there. But thank you so much for watching. Um please do go and have a go at cooking this. do do have a go at freezing it as well. Um it’s really economical dish um and packed full of flavor, delicious and join us again another time for some more recipes. So thank you.