Chris and I went to Costa Rica for our honeymoon and one rainy night we went to a treehouse-like restaurant in Manuel Antonio with the intentions of going all out. I don’t know what food costs there now, but eight years ago, it was cheap. So despite being newly wed and having just purchased a condo, we got a pitcher of top-of-the-line coconut margaritas with apps to start and ordered the best steaks on the menu. This extravagant ordering went on and on until our bill topped out at $100. And it was the nicest restaurant in town! I wish I remembered the name.

That night we fell in love with Chimichurri. It is a flavorful limey parsley sauce that contains generous amounts of olive oil and tastes great on steaks, fish, chicken, omelettes, you name it. I ordered it a few times back in the U.S. but it just wasn’t the same.

Flash forward to now – the baby has been sick and up all hours so our meals have been rather lackluster lately. I didn’t feel great about serving frozen lasagna last night and sending Lucas off to school this morning with a cream cheese and jam sandwich in his lunchbox. So I was motivated.

I decided to make fish with a chimichurri-esque topping. It is traditionally served raw, but it’s great cooked too. Lucas had FOUR helpings and Chris told me “this is the best fish I’ve had in a long time.” The pictures don’t do justice to the bursting-forth flavors of this dish.

And is this weird or what? Chris randomly brought home a leftover piece of tres leches cake for me today! We also discovered this yummy delight on our honeymoon and the running joke was that I was having an affair with it – and I was.

Baked Fish with Chimichurri

Note: If you are serving the sauce raw, it will need to sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors come together. I baked the sauce over the fish in this recipe so it didn’t need any extra time.

3/4 cup parsley, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. sea salt
several grinds of pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. lime juice
1.5 pounds fish (I used cod his time but have also made it with salmon)

Preheat the oven to 400 (I used convection).

To make the sauce, combine all ingredients except the fish in a bowl. We pressed the first four a bit with the mortar and pestle for fun and to release the flavors before pouring in the olive oil and lime juice.

Rinse the fish, pat dry and place into a lightly oiled casserole dish. Spoon sauce over the fish and bake for about 12-15 minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.