Tagliatelle pasta with lightly spiced up hake fillet and tomato sauce

As promised last night, in today’s recipe we are going to use our home-made pasta. Obviously making pasta takes a bit of time and effort but besides that the recipe is really simple and in a hurry you can prepare an elegant, well presented dish.

Ingredients (to serve 4):

500g fresh egg pasta

4 medium sized hake fillet

½ tsp paprika

1/3 tsp turmeric

½ tsp saffron

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp salt

Oil for frying 

TOMATO SAUCE:

400 ml canned tomatoes

2 Tbsp butter

4 Tbsp cream cheese

Salt to taste

1. Wash the fish fillets and pat dry with a paper towel. Mix the dry spices together in the bowl and rub on the fish. Place prepared fillets on a tray, cover with cling film and marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour. (We were already using this marinade to prepare filling for ravioli, remember?)
2. When hake is marinated and ready to fry, heat the oil in a medium-sized non-stick saucepan. Fry the hake fillets on low-medium heat until fully cooked. Starting from the skin side.
3. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted boiling water according to instructions from previous post. If using different kinds of pasta follow the cooking instructions on the packet.  As a guide, per person you should allow 75g-115g/3oz-4oz dried pasta; 115g-150g/4oz-5oz fresh pasta; however it all depends on your appetite and personal preferences. Taste during the cooking process to make sure the pasta is neither too soft nor too hard. Once cooked, drain into a colander and shake well to remove all excess water. Set aside. 
4. Prepare tomato sauce by mixing canned tomatoes with butter on a heavy-based pan and fry until tomatoes are soft. Add cream cheese and mix well together. Simmer on a low heat for a few minutes to achieve smooth and thick consistency of the sauce. Salt to taste. At this stage, without using other spices sauce will taste a bit bland; however while serving with marinated hake fillets it will absorb the flavours from the fish.
5. Now place the pasta onto serving plates, top with warm tomato sauce and fry hake fillets to the centre. Garnish with fresh parsley or basil leaves. Enjoy!

Tips:

Other way of serving is to stir your pasta into the tomato sauce and top it with fish fillet. Whichever way you chose it looks really good and it’s equally tasty.