Fish cachupa by @recipesformax

It’s my attempt to replicate cachupa  – a famous dish from Cape Verde. Traditionally it is made of different beans, vegetable, potato, cabbage, and meat or fish. Each Cape Verde island has its own recipe: some add chorizo or fried egg to the dish. To make it even more affordable use paddock – it is cheap but ideal for stews.

You need

• Super large pan with lid (or halve the ingredients)

Ingredients

• 2 cans of different beans (I prefer chick peas mixed with flageolet beans) drained;
• 1/2 (500g) cabbage chopped in big chucks;
• 1 large white onion finely chopped;
• 3 garlic cloves crashed;
• fresh corriander finely chopped;
• 2 fish stock pots;
• 3 large potatoes chopped into 1cm dice;
• 40g tomato puree;
• 500g fish cut in chunks;
• 1 tbsp oil;
• 1 tbsp ground cumin (optional);
• salt and freshly ground black pepper;
• 500ml-1L water;

Step by step

• Cut and chop all ingredients as described above.
• Heat a pan over a medium-high heat and fry the onions until golden.
• Add 500ml water with 2 stock pots to the pan, stir well. (Add more water as you go depending on how dry/liquid you’d like your cachupa.)
• Add the potatoes and cabbage.  Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are a bit tender but not done yet (check with a knife).
• Stir in the tomato puree and season the stew with salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, and coriander at this point.
• Bring to a simmer, add the beans, and then the fish. Stir the stew very gently to avoid breaking the fish chunks;
• Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook 5-10 minutes until the fish is cooked;
• Serve piping hot with sourdough bread;

Thermomix

• NB: you need to halve all the ingredients to fit them into a Thermomix bowl;
• Put the onion in the bowl and chop 5sec/Speed6. Saute for 2min/100C/Speed1;
• Add the stock, potatoes and cabbage (chopped in large chunks). Cook for 15min/120C/SpoonR;
• Add the tomato puree. Season the stew with salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, and coriander. Cook 2 min/120C/SpoonR.
• Add the beans and then the fish chunks. Cook 7min/120C/SpoonR.
• Serve piping hot with sourdough bread;

  Your shopping basket

• 2x260g paddock fish – £3.60
• 1kg cabbage – £0.80
• 3 onions – £0.50
• 4 fish stock pots – £1.45
• 2xcan of beans – £1.20
• 3 large potatoes – £0.75
• 40g tin tomato puree – £0.35
• Total basket £8.65 | Cost of ingredients (6 servings) £8.00 | Per serving £1.33