Whiting with Sorrel Tomato Sauce

One of my co-workers had a lot of extra fresh herbs which she was gracious enough to share with me because she was on her way out of town. One of those herbs was sorrel...which I had never heard of, much less used in my cooking. I looked for recipes on the internet and didn't have all the ingredients for any recipe in particular, but very close to one from the Congo region, so I ended up making the fish with a tomato sorrel sauce. The recipe called for 1 small can of tomato paste, but all I had was pasta sauce, so I used that instead. My co-worker also gave me some gorgeous (and delicious) red and yellow baby tomatoes that I used for the sauce.

Ingredients
2 lbs. whiting fish
1 pint baby tomatoes, halved
1 bunch sorrel, chopped with stems removed
1 tsp nutmeg
2 shallots, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, sliced and seeds removed
1 bay leaf
1 cup pasta sauce
1 1/2 cups water
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat 2 tbps. of the olive oil in a pan, fry the fish until cooked through, and set aside. Heat the remaining 2 tbsps. of olive oil and add the shallots and jalapeno pepper in the pan until the shallots are cooked through. Add the tomatoes, pasta sauce, and half the water. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer, slowly adding water to keep the sauce smoothe. Stir in the sorrel, bay leaf, nutmeg, and fish. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes and serve hot over rice or quinoa. I couldn't get the fish into the sauce in one piece, so I ended up with the fish all broken up, but it was still delicious and looked more like a stew by the time it was done. Enjoy!