A fast fish recipe that leaves the stove top clear and also makes a good fresh salad or new potato dressing.  Easily adapted for tastes adding capers or substituting chervil or parsley, dijon or chutney for the seeded mustard gives an endless range of options. 

1/3 cup cold pressed extra virgin olive oil

7-800 g white fish fillets

salt and pepper

1-1/2-2 lemons, juiced

1 heaped tablespoon of wholegrain mustard, (I like the Pams one best)

2-3 tablespoons roughly chopped fennel fern

½  teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon white pepper

Foil or a large roaster with a lid

Green leaves and cooked new potatoes to serve

1. Preheat oven to 210 C
2. Brush your deep roasting pan with some olive oil and lay the fish fillets out in a single layer. Season all with salt and pepper.
3. Mix the lemon juice, mustard, fennel fern, salt, sugar and white pepper. Drizzle liberally over all the fish keeping enough aside to use over a salad or new potatoes.
4. Cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes Checking after 7 minutes if your roasting pan is stainless steel or enamel like the one pictured. If your roasting pan is cast iron, it will take double this as it takes longer to heat that through.   You can tell it is done if you press a cutlery knife into a piece of fish and it is very nearly cooked. Then remove from the oven and leave the foil on for 5 minutes while you set the table, it will finish in the residual heat.

Makes: Enough for each person to have 200g of fresh fish

Notes: I tested this recipe with three commonly available NZ white fish.

Ling (oval dish) which took 10 minutes plus resting 5.

Gurnard (green tray) and Tarakihi (pictured above) both took 7 minutes plus resting. 

The resting gives you a bit of wriggle room but look for fillets about the same size.  With the Ling for example I folded the tail of the fillets under to make them the same width as the fatter section of the fillet.