Halibut, Calabrian Style with Lemon Dill Rice

I few years ago I was researching recipes for a catering we were doing, when I came across this recipe...well a version of this recipe. It inspired me to make tonight’s dish. If you watch any cooking shows you will hear them refer to using Calabrian Chilies. So when I saw that the original recipe was “Calabrian style” recipe, but it didn’t include chilies, I knew I had to work it in. 

Also, the ventilation in our house isn’t the best, so I decided to make the dish on the grill. Pulled out my cast iron, which was perfect for this dish. 

Here’s what I made....

Halibut, Calabrian Style

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. black pepper
• 1¼ lb. fresh halibut, cut into 2-inch pieces
• ½ cup chopped onion
• ½ tomato, chopped
• 2 Calabrian chilies, chopped
• 1 tsp. flour
• 1½ cups dry white wine
• 1 (15-oz.) can chickpeas, drained
• ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
• Lemon zest
• Lemon wedges

Directions: 

1. Stir together 2 Tbsp. oil, the lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add fish and toss to coat. Heat remaining 1 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté until golden, about 8 minutes, then transfer to a plate.
2. Remove fish from marinade, discarding marinade, and pat fish dry with paper towels. Transfer fish to hot skillet over medium-high heat; brown 1 minute on each side, then remove from skillet.
3. Add flour to skillet; cook, stirring, over medium-high heat until lightly browned. Stir in wine, chickpeas, onion, tomatoes, chili’s and half of parsley. Simmer until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Return fish to skillet; cook until it flakes easily with a fork, about 1 minute. Serve with remaining parsley, lemon zest, and lemon wedges.
4. Serve over lemon dill rice.

Sole Meunière

As you all have read, Craig and I joined a CSF (Best Catch Seattle)few weeks back. I’ve posted about Black Cod, Rock Fish, Ling Cod, and King Salmon. This week, when we received the email telling us what the fresh caught fish was, I was like….I know what I'm making!  Julia Child’s first dish she ate when she arrived in France, Sole Meunière

Growing up, I never had an appreciation for Julia Child. She was always on channel 10 (PBS in Portland), and I found her show boring and didn't actually care for her.  In 2009, when the movie, Julie and Julia came out, we went and saw it, thinking “I'm not really into Julia, but I like to cook, so maybe I'll like it”.  I never realized how much of an impact that movie would make on the way I cook.  When I left the theater, I went home and downloaded every book I could find to listen to from, “My Life In France”, to “Appetite For Life”, just to name a couple.  I even found a first edition “Mastering The Art Of French Cooking”.  I then went back and watched a quite a few of her TV programs “The French Chef”, and was like, wow look at all I missed.  Now, any opportunity I get to make one of her recipes, I always opt for one from Julia.

Now, Sole……my mom used to microwave sole for dinner, so my impression of this delicious fish was not all that favorable.  Sole is a flatfish, and is a member of the Flounder family, and a bottom feeder. It’s a fast cooking fish and can easily be over cooked.  Here is the recipe I used for today’s share of our CSF.

Sole Meunière

Ingredients

1 lemon

1 pound boned, skinned sole fillets

Salt

About 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

4 to 5 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 tablespoons drained capers

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup minced parsley

Fresh-ground white pepper

Preparation

1. Rinse lemon, and with a small, sharp knife, cut off and discard peel and white membrane. Thinly slice lemon crosswise, discarding seeds and ends.

2. Rinse sole and pat dry. If fillets are longer than 6 or 7 inches, cut in half crosswise so they'll be less likely to break when you turn them. Sprinkle each fillet lightly with salt. Coat on all sides with flour, shake off excess, and lay pieces side by side on a sheet of plastic wrap.

3. In a 12- to 14-inch frying pan over high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter; when hot, lay as many pieces as will fit side by side in pan without crowding and cook until browned on the bottom, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Turn with a wide, flexible metal spatula and brown remaining side, 1 to 2 minutes longer (if butter begins to scorch, reduce heat to medium-high). With spatula, transfer fillets to an ovenproof platter, laying pieces side by side, and keep warm in a 200º oven. Melt 1 more tablespoon butter in frying pan; repeat step to cook remaining sole fillets, transfer to platter, and keep warm in the oven.

4. With a paper towel, wipe frying pan clean and return to high heat. Add 1 to 2 more tablespoons butter and the capers; stir until butter is melted. Add lemon juice, remove from heat, and stir in about 3 tablespoons of the parsley. At once, scrape butter mixture over hot fish fillets. Garnish with lemon slices and remaining parsley and sprinkle generously with pepper. With spatula, transfer fillets to plates. Season to taste with more salt.

Asian Style Cole Slaw

It's been a couple of weeks now I've been reporting on the CSF (Community Supported Fishing, Best Catch Seattle ).  This week our share is a pound portion of Washington caught King Salmon.


Fresh King Salmon

Any time I get fresh fish, I prefer to season and cook the fish and let the true flavor come through.  Last night I seasoned the fish with fresh cracked black pepper and a sprinkle of some lava salt our neighbors brought us back from Hawaii and few years ago.



 



Hawaiian Black Lava Salt



Salmon, portioned and seasoned

We receive an email either the day before, or the morning of our scheduled pick up.  This give me enough time to plan out dinner, although I do have an arsenal of ideas for side dishes.  With the weather turning warmer on the west coast, I didn't want something heavy, so I opted for a grilled pineapple and cucumber salsa and an Asian style Cole slaw.  The pineapple cucumber salsa I have made before and is a hit in our house.  The Asian style Cole slaw is an adaptation of a friends recipe we helped make for her sisters 60th birthday a few years ago.
 



Dinner

Asian Style Cole Slaw

Dressing:

1 T sugar

½ cup oil

2 tsp sesame oil

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

¼ cup rice wine vinegar

2 T garlic chili paste

2 T finely chopped cilantro

Packet from the ramen

Salad:

1 small head green cabbage, shredded

1 bunch green onions, chopped

2 packaged instant ramen soup (chicken flavor)

½ cup toasted slivered almonds

1 can sliced water chestnuts, roughly chopped

1 can baby corn, cut into 1 inch pieces

Instructions:

Mix dressing together, set aside.

Toss together the cabbage, green onions, almonds, corn, and water chestnuts.  Crush the dry ramen noodles on top of salad. 

Pour dressing and stir to combine.

Salad needs to rest 3-4 hours, for the cabbage and noodles to soak up the flavor of the dressing.

*Note: you can use any type you like, except red-it bleeds. 

It was also suggested to add shredded chicken and stuff a Pita with this.

Salmon, All cooked

Ginger Garlic Lemongrass Snapper with Persian Rice and Cucumber Feta Salad

This is the second week of our CSF (community supported fishing).  Last week was Black Cod, this week, Ling Cod and Rock Fish (red snapper).  Craig and I talked this morning about how we were going to prepare the fish and side dishes.  I was pretty set on the cucumber feta salad, and when I mentioned green onion rice, he said, maybe I should make traditional Persian rice with saffron.  Any time he offers to cook, I'm just fine with that.

When we picked up our fish today, we noticed that both fish combined, we at least 2 meals.  So while we had planned for tonight's dinner, we quickly planned a dinner for tomorrow.  Back to tonight’s dinner, when I heard we were getting Ling Cod, I immediately thought of an Asian marinade.  Garlic, Ginger Lemongrass marinade. So dinner tonight was a team effort.  Craig did his traditional Persian rice with saffron and I made Cucumber Feta salad and the marinate for the fish. 

Lemongrass Garlic Ginger marinade

2 stalks lemongrass


2-inch piece fresh ginger (about 3 tablespoons finely minced)


5 garlic cloves, finely minced


1 jalapeno or Serrano pepper, finely minced


4 tablespoon palm sugar (or use brown sugar)


3 tablespoon fish sauce


2 tablespoon soy sauce


2 tablespoon canola oil


2 tablespoon rice vinegar


If you haven’t used lemongrass before, this is what you do for this recipe: Peel outer layer of lemongrass. Cut off top third of stalk, then cut off root end of stalk; discard. Thinly slice rest of stalk crosswise, and then finely mince it. It should smell lemony!

Peel and finely mince the ginger and garlic. Finely minced the pepper (if you like a milder flavor, begin by slicing pepper in half and removing seeds before mincing). I have done all this mincing of ginger, garlic and pepper by hand, or the short way in my mini food processor. Suit yourself.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together lemongrass, ginger, garlic, pepper, sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, oil and rice vinegar.

Place fish in marinade, and let set for 15-20 minutes. Drizzle a little of the marinade on top of the fish.

Pull fish out and place on lemongrass, slices in half and placed on the hot grill. Grill for 3-5 minutes, until fish is firm.  

Cucumber and Feta Salad

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced into pea-sized pieces

coarse salt

8 ounces (225g) feta cheese

1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil

2-3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

freshly ground black pepper

1 small red onion, peeled and finely-diced

1 tablespoon (each) chopped fresh mint, parsley and fresh dill

1. Place the cucumber pieces in a colander, mix with a light sprinkling salt, and let drain 30 minutes to an hour, shaking the colander from time to time.

2. Crumble the feta into a bowl and mash together with the olive oil, lemon juice, water, and a few turns of black pepper.

3. Mix in the cucumbers, onions, and herbs. Taste, and add more salt if desired.

Blackened Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos with Avocado Lime Sauce

16 years ago, when I met my now husband, he told me that he didn’t care for fish.  With his being a “vegetarian”, ok Semi-vegetarian, how do you cook for such a person.  Well, over the years I have introduced several types of fish to which I have had a great response.  Started with Copper River Salmon,  Fresh Halibut, and lastly True Cod.  (We canned Tuna this past summer, but have yet to have him try it)

So that brings me to tonight’s dinner, Blackened Mahi Mahi Tacos with Avocado Lime Sauce.  I took a huge risk with making these, as Craig is not one to like new things….so how do you do introduce such a dinner?  You just dodn’t tell him what we were having, until it was in front of him.  

Here’s the recipe….

Blackened Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos with Avocado Lime Sauce

Ingredients

Avocado Lime Sauce-

 ½ cup sour cream

1 ripe avocado

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Zest of 1 lime

½ teaspoon serrano pepper seeded and chopped

Blackened Mahi Mahi Tacos

1½ teaspoons smoked paprika

1½ teaspoons dark brown sugar

½ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon ground chili pepper

1½ pounds Mahi Mahi filets, cut lengthwise into smaller pieces if needed

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

8 (6-inch) corn tortillas

8 lime wedges

1 cup diced tomatoes

1 cup red cabbage, sliced thin

1 cup green cabbage, sliced thin

Cilantro, for garnish

Directions

1. Combine sour cream, avocado, cilantro, lime juice, lime zest and Serrano pepper in a blender; process until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl and refrigerate.

2. Combine paprika, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, cumin and chili pepper in a small bowl. Sprinkle seasoning evenly over both sides of the fish filets.

3. Heat oil in a large cast-iron skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add fish to pan; cook 2-3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.

4. Warm tortillas according to package directions. Divide fish evenly among tortillas. Serve with lime wedges, tomatoes, cabbage, and cilantro.

(I forgot to warm the tortilla’s, but otherwise these were amazing!!!)