Baked fish with oregano, lemon, and olives

My go-to fish recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express. The fish fillets are smeared with a paste made from garlic, oregano, olive oil, and lemon juice. Then they're baked for just eight minutes and sprinkled with olives. I make this recipe time and time again because it works with any kind of fish, it’s easy and made with ingredients I always have, and it consistently comes out delicious. This time I used fresh mahi mahi that we got on trip to the Texas gulf coast.

---

Kitchen Express is written in an unusual format that I have really grown to appreciate. The recipes are just one paragraph, with no list of ingredients or specific amounts. Mark Bittman has excelled in this style of short format recipe for a long time. He published some excellent lists in his New York Times column The Minimalist almost ten years ago that were so good I still remember them well. The recipes in the lists are just one to two sentences long and take less than 20 minutes. There’s a list of 101 simple appetizers and another of 101 picnic dishes. I love the flexibility and informality of these recipes. They inspire playful and creative cooking. I’ve copied the fish recipe almost exactly as it appears in Kitchen Express below.
 
I’m surprised I don’t have more recipes from Mark Bittman on this site just yet. There are more to come. Who are your favorite recipe authors? Share in the comments!

Baked fish with oregano, lemon, and olives
Recipe from Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express
 
Heat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Score the skin of some fish fillets (any kind, really). In a mortar and pestle or small food processor, mix together a few cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and a tablespoon or two of fresh marjoram or oregano; add some olive oil and lemon juice to make a paste. Smear the paste on the fish, covering it well. Bake the fish skin side up for about eight minutes, or until a thin-bladed knife pierces it with little resistance. Chop a handful of good quality olives and a little more herb and scatter them over the fish before serving.