Disappointed Cod in Tomato

Hmmm...

Serves 4, but frankly I'd do a few chips to pad it out.

Ingredients:

4 cod fillets
400g can of chopped tomato
1 onion
1 tbsp olive oil
1 heaped tsp of soft brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce

When you buy the cod, you obviously want a tasty bit of fish. To the cod, this is a done deal, so stress it out by openly considering another white fish. Engage the fishmonger in conversation and throw around words like “Pollock” within earshot of the cod to show you mean business. Toy with the cod, as if trying to decide whether to tell Santa about a pleading child's bad behaviour. The added stress really brings out the flavour.

Back home, enter the kitchen and silently line up your frying pans on the worktop. Be very precise about this. Leave the room for slightly too long, then suddenly burst through the door, pointing at the largest pan and shouting, “You! You gotta help me!” Put the other pans away and explain the situation. You got these fish, see, these fish that need cooking. But it’s got to be done right, yeah? It’s gotta be done just right. Are you up for it, pan? I said are you up for it? You are? Great! Let’s GO!

With the pan firmly on message and eager for action, we can begin.

Much like garlic, olive oil thinks it’s something special. For all reasonable purposes it lubricates and helps distribute heat into other ingredients and loosens ear wax prior to syringing. With this in mind, treat the oil with the contempt normally reserved for a celebrity at an airport check-in demanding to know who the Hell he thinks he is. Toss about a tbsp of the oil into the frying pan, then return the bottle to the cupboard with the label pointing to the wall “by mistake”.

Like a tarantula ready to flick barbed hairs into the eyes of a curious jungle creature, the onion will be gearing up to release its foul defences. Nonchalantly fill the sink with warm, soapy water. Now, before it can gather its wits to launch an attack, quickly switch on the extractor fan. On a chopping board, cut the onion in half, then chop the halves roughly by using a long, very sharp knife as if it were a paper guillotine. Be as quick as you can about this. Toss the bits into the oil, then immediately slip the board and knife into the sink. Wash everything, while ignoring Mr Onion's screams. Fry the foul vegetable until it gives up, turns brown, and releases the delicious smell of onion death.

Shroud the dead onion in the chopped tomatoes. Actually, that seems like a lot of tomatoes. Are you sure this pan is big enough?

The weeping sound is probably the brown sugar. Treat it kindly. It really wanted to be rum. You only need a heaped tsp. The rest will probably be thrown out years later, much like your dreams of learning to cook properly. Why don't they sell small sachets of these things? I don’t know, but we all have to make sacrifices.

Add to the pan a tbsp of soy sauce, as if patiently correcting a sales proposal where someone has used leverage as a verb. Much like your superior grasp of your mother tongue, the soy will be ignored under the tang of tomato. Such is life. Simmer this amateurish mess for 5 mins.

Slip the cod into the pan, one fillet at a time, and cynically laugh as each tries to swim, confused. Cover the pan with a large plate that is dull-witted enough to demean itself in this way. Gently cook the whole thing for 8-10 mins. At some point, the fish will slowly realise they are not swimming in a delicious sea. This will cause them so much disappointment, they will become flaky and finish cooking.

Also by this time, even the stupidest of plates will have realised it’s been duped. It will be humiliated and therefore very hot. Like a furious budgerigar, it will frantically try to bite you at every opportunity, so handle it with care.