Gut the fish (if they aren't already)
Get some new potatoes cooking.
Chop red onions into strips, by cutting in half from the 'top' of the onion not the side then chop across the halves and break the onion segments up by hand. Do enough that you can make a good layer right across the bottom of a frying pan (one that can take a lid - you need a lid)
Put the chopped onion into a mixing bowl and add 3 or 4 diced cloves of garlic.
To the mixing bowl of onions & garlic add a generous splash of dark soy sauce, mixed herbs, salt and pepper and 2 tablespoons of clear honey. A small splash of apple juice (about 1 finger in a normal drinking glass) and half a cup of water and a good sploosh of olive oil. Then get busy mixing it all up by hand.
Pour the mixture into your (cold) frying pan and distribute it evenly over the bottom of the pan. You are trying to achieve a base of onions that will hold the fish off the base of the pan and just enough liquid that it doesn't really touch the fish very much, just kind of laps the underside of the fish.
Heat the mixture rapidly until it starts to bubble then turn the flame down to a simmer. Add the fish carefully on top of the onion mix and put the lid on.
Check periodically to make sure that the water hasn't dried up, if it has, just add a little more - you don't want it to dry out. Believe me!
Cooking time seems to be pretty random, just keep checking the fish until they are done. It isn't necessary to turn the fish, but if you can do it carefully, there is no harm and it helps flavour the fish.
When the fish are done, take them out and crank the heat to rapidly half boil half fry off the mixture until it goes thick and gloopy, but still pourable. scoop out the onions and press them into the fish bellies and pour the gloop over the potatoes.
Before you serve - get that frying pan soaking! This mixture laughs in the face of Teflon.
It is Bloody Delicious if I do say so myself (and I do, since it's my recipe!)
