I’ve never done a fish “fry” at home before just now, mainly because I’ve been leery of 1).  The scary amount of oil required for the actual deep frying of fish and 2).  How the frying process can smell up the house for days on end.  This oven frying method yields both crunchy fish and fries, without a ton of oil, and without the smelly smell.  The cod is so mild, even my punks who ‘don’t like fish’ were be persuaded to give it a try, and the fries turned out so well, I might never buy another frozen bag again!

You will be blown away by how easily this dinner comes together!  You’ll also be shocked at how incredibly cheap it is to make: five pieces of cod: $5.50;  three HUGE potatoes: $1.29.  Fish and chips at home on a weeknight in under 45 minutes?  Priceless!

I would use this method again for fish sandwiches, we all loved it!   I hope you will too!

The cod that’s on sale this week is frozen.  To thaw it, transfer the pieces to a large ziplock bag.  Fill your sink partway with lukewarm water and place the bag with the fish in the water.  Let it float in there for an hour or so, then drain it and pat it dry.

CRISPY OVEN-FRIED COD

Serves: 4

Source:  The Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl; p. 301

• ¾ c. fine dry breadcrumbs
• ¾ c. yellow cornmeal
• 1 t. salt
• ¼ t. cayenne pepper
• 4 – 6 oz. pieces of center cut cod fillet (the cod that’s on sale is not center cut, but you could trim it if you wanted everything to be really perfect and pretty)
• 2 large eggs
• 6 T. vegetable oil

• Lemon wedges, parsley sprigs, and tartar sauce as accompaniments

Put a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Combine breadcrumbs, cornmeal, salt, and cayenne in a shallow pie plate.  In a separate shallow dish, beat the eggs together to combine.

Pat the fish dry with paper towels.  Season both sides with salt and pepper.  Dredge fish in the breadcrumb mixture, then dip fish in eggs, and dredge again in the crumbs.  Transfer to a plate.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy, oven-proof skillet over high heat until oil is very hot but not smoking.  Add the fish and fry until underside is golden brown, about a minute.  Gently flip fish over and cook until golden brown on second side, about another minute.  Transfer skillet to oven and continue to cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Serve with lemon, parsley, and tartar sauce.

ROASTED FRENCH FRIES

Serves:  4

Source:  The Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl; p. 568

• 1 ½ lbs. russet potatoes (about three large), scrubbed
• ¼ c. vegetable oil
• ½ t. salt (I used Lawry’s Seasoned Salt)
• ¼ t. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Trim a small slice of potato off of one side so that it lies flat on your work surface.  Cut the potatoes into 1/3 inch thick slices, then cut into 1/3 inch thick sticks.  IMMEDIATELY (this is important) toss with the oil, salt, and pepper in a large bowl, then spread potatoes on a large rimmed baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Loosen potatoes from bottom of pan with a metal spatula, turn them over, and spread out again.  Bake until crisp and edges are golden brown, about 10 minutes more (I tossed mine again at this point and let them go another 5 minutes; we like them on the crispy side).  Serve right away.

We’ve been eating a lot more fish at our house since I started writing this blog.  It’s been good for our family, too.  Not only does fish feel much lighter than meat, it’s given me a great chance to experiment with different preparations, and my kids have decided that salmon (“yay, pink fish!”) is all right — except for No Thank-You Boy, of course … but if you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve determined there’s not much in the way of food that he enjoys these days.  Teenagers.  Let’s not talk about him please.

Let’s talk about dinner!  This meal comes together in a skinny minute; there’s minimal prep work followed by a short cook time.  The sauce of red onion, lemon juice, and capers is light and bright at the same time.  If you’re not crazy about those flavors, you could easily pass on the sauce.  Truth be told (and keepin’ it real), my husband wasn’t nuts about the sauce.  I liked it though, and thought it was a nice compliment to the fish.

You could also punt and whip up a box of rice pilaf if you weren’t feelin’ it for the risotto, but as far as risotto goes, this one is a cinch, and a perfect recipe to get the hang of the technique if you’ve never made risotto before.  Give it a try!

Enjoy your Monday, everyone!

ROASTED SALMON & ASPARAGUS WITH LEMON-CAPER SAUCE

Serves:  4

Source:  epicurious.com

• 2 T. fresh lemon juice
• 2 T. minced red onion
• 1 T. olive oil
• 1 T. capers, chopped
• pinch dried thyme
• ½ t. grated lemon zest

• 1 ½ lb. skinless salmon fillet (on sale)
• 1 lb. asparagus (also on sale)
• 1 T. olive oil

Preheat oven to 450.  Whisk first six ingredients in a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

Cut three ½” deep slits crosswise in top of salmon (as if dividing into 4 equal pieces but don’t cut all the way through).  Arrange asparagus in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet.  Drizzle with oil and turn to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place salmon atop asparagus; sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast until salmon is just opaque in center, about 20 minutes.

Transfer asparagus and salmon to platter.  Spoon sauce over salmon.  Cut into 4 pieces along slits and serve.

RISOTTO WITH PARMESAN

Serves: 6 as a side dish

Source:  epicurious.com

• 5 c. chicken broth
• 4 T. butter (I cut this to 2 T. with no trouble)
• 1 ½ c. finely chopped onion
• 1 ½ c. Arborio rice
• 1 c. grated Parmesan (if you opt for the green can, I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore.)
• 2 T. chopped fresh Italian parsley
• Shaved Parmesan cheese (on sale)

Bring broth to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Reduce heat to low; cover saucepan.

Melt the butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium low heat.  Add onion, sauté until very tender but not brown, about 15 minutes.  Increase heat to medium.  Add rice and stir 1 minute.  Add 1 ½ cups of broth.  Boil gently until broth is absorbed, stirring frequently.  Add another cup of broth; stir until broth is absorbed.  Add remaining 2 ½ cups of broth, ½ cup at a time, patiently allowing broth to be absorbed before adding more and stirring frequently until rice is tender and mixture is creamy, about 25 minutes.  Patience, people.  Stir in 1 cup of grated cheese.  Season with salt and pepper.  Transfer to serving bowl, garnish with parsley and shaved Parmesan.

I’m going to play along with the heat and humidity by whipping up this simple and light grilled seafood supper for the DamFam tonight.  This meal is ideal for a day like this; there is very little prep work involved, practically NO dirty dishes, and I won’t even have to fire up the oven (well, actually that’s not quite true; I think I’ll heat up a baguette to soak up the yummy sauce).  The long and the short is that I’ll have plenty of time to laze around, sipping lemonade on ice and enjoying the heat of the day.  Later on, I’ll put the Husband on grill duty.  He’s gonna be all over this recipe; I’m pretty sure the sight of foil packets will send him di-rectly down memory lane with sweet visions of his days at Boy Scout camp.

This recipe (originally found in Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food Magazine) makes great use of the sale tilapia (the same I used for the tacos a few days back) as well as those ridiculously cheap redskinned potatoes (hello….39/pound?).  You certainly could use the sale Bos’n Cleaned Shrimp, but for this dinner, I prefer to use larger shimp.  I’m going to splurge and go for 16-20 count, which I can easily justify because I don’t need that many of them for this recipe.

Ask my husband – I can justify just about anything.  It’s a gift, what can I say.

The original recipe calls for a making a dill compound butter (don’t be scared!) which is really good, but because I stupidly forgot to grab dill when I was at the store, tonight I’m going to use a slightly different riff.  It’s the same basic idea, but with Old Bay seasoning instead of dill.  Directions for both butters are included; feel free to go with the one you like.  No need to thank me.  You know I live for this stuff.

Despite how simple these packets are to pull together, I would TOTALLY be comfortable serving these to guests!  In fact, I’m going to pop it into my menu rotation for entertaining out here at the cottage.

Happy summer, all!  Enjoy!

GRILLED SEAFOOD PACKETS

Serves: 4

Source:  Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food Magazine, July/August 2007 issue.

For the dill butter:

• 2 T. butter, room temperature
• 2 T. finely chopped fresh dill, plus additional sprigs for garnish
• 1 small clove garlic, pressed or very finely minced
• Coarse salt and ground pepper

For Old Bay butter:

• 2 T. butter, room temperature
• ½ t. Old Bay Seasoning (adjust it to your taste)
• 1 small clove garlic, pressed or very finely minced
• Coarse salt and ground pepper

• 8 oz. redskinned potatoes, scrubbed and very thinly sliced (I’m serious)
• 1 lb. skinless cod fillet, cut into 4 equal pieces (I used the sale Tilapia)
• 8 oz. uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 12, which is 3 a piece…did I mention math is another of my gifts?)
• 2 ears corn, husked and quartered
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced, plus additional wedges for garnish

Heat your grill to medium.  Decide which compound butter you’d like to use (or do a little of each — whatever makes you happy!).  The instructions apply to either:  In a small bowl, combine  well 2 T. butter with either the chopped dill or the Old Bay, and the garlic.  Season with salt and pepper and voila, you just made a compound butter, you sassy thing!  Taste it, admire it, set is aside.

Fold four 14-inch squares of heavy-duty aluminum foil in half, forming 4 rectangles.  Assemble packets:  spray on one half of each of four folded pieces of foil with a little Pam; arrange your VERY THINLY sliced potatoes in a single layer, top with the fish, then the shrimp, dividing all ingredients evenly among the foil pieces.  Place two ears of corn on the side.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add a dollop of the compound butter and two lemon slices.  Fold foil over ingredients, and crimp edges tightly to seal.

Place the packets on the grill, with potato layer on the bottom.  Cook, rotating (but not flipping) packets occasionally, until fish is just cooked through and potatoes are tender, 15 minutes.

Remove from grill.  Slit packets to open, and transfer contents to individual plates.  Garnish with additional dill sprigs or lemon wedges.

I fully admit that I revert back to the mid-80’s when I’m with this particular group – we tend to eat a lot of junk food, and imbibe on a few more cocktails that we typically do in our normal daily lives.  Of course, we put on our 80’s music; this year, our playlist for the weekend was (naturally) monopolized by Michael Jackson.  We stay up ENTIRELY too late (3:10 a.m, thank you very much), dance around in our pajamas, laugh our faces off, and of course, enjoy every minute we have together.

I usually come home from our annual get-together completely exhausted and yes, slightly hungover, needing an alcoholic / caloric detox. So it’s no surprise I was craving ‘light and healthy’ for dinner on Monday night, and decided to go with the Wild Caught Alaskan King Salmon that’s on sale this week.  Limes are also on special, 5 / 1.00, so I chose a Soy Lime Sauce to go along with the fish.  I served it on a bed of Coconut Rice with Scallions and Cilantro, and it was a big hit with the Husband and the kids.

The salmon was ‘sear-roasted’, which is a simple, two step technique that restaurant chefs use to get a gorgeous brown crust on different cuts of meat, poultry, or fish.  The food is quickly seared in a hot, hot pan before going into the oven, where it finishes cooking evenly.  If you can master this skill, you will look like a total pro in the kitchen!  This salmon is the perfect recipe for learning the sear-roasting process.

First of all, you’ll need a heavy, oven-proof pan, preferably not non-stick.  The coatings on non-stick pans generally ‘can’t take the heat’ of a super-hot oven.  You’ll want to heat up your pan over a pretty hot flame (I would call it ‘medium high’); it should be hot enough that a drop of water will evaporate almost immediately on contact with the pan.

Next, add in your oil, and give it a swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. I don’t ever measure; I just add enough oil so that the bottom is nicely coated.  Please don’t skimp, or your fish might stick to your pan, and I would hate to see that happen.

Making sure your salmon is completely dry and nicely seasoned, add the fish to the pan, skinned side up (or, ‘pretty side’ down).  Please, please, please don’t crowd your pan.  Crowding your fish will cause them to steam instead of sear.  If you have to sear the fillets in two batches, that’s okay.

Now.  Here is the secret, and it is a big one.  The key to your searing success is to … are you ready?  Listen closely, please.

DO NOT FIDDLE WITH THE FISH.  Do not touch it, do not scoot it around, do not play with it for a full three minutes.  Got it?  I’m serious.  ‘Cause if you’re lookin’, you ain’t cookin’!

I didn’t make that up, I heard a chef say it once and it’s become my searing motto.  Catchy, right?

When three minutes have passed, you may gently peek at the underside of the fish.  Your salmon should have a beautiful, golden brown crust.  Gently flip the fish over, drizzle it with a bit of sauce (as indicated in the recipe), and place the pan in the oven.  Proceed with the next few steps, then sit back and enjoy the praise that your family will heap upon you at the dinner table.

Oh, one last note:  since I never seem to learn, I give myself a big red flag reminder that the pan (which came out of the oven just a short while ago) is still really, flippin’ HOT.  I now like to leave the potholder on the handle of my pan so as not to burn the heck out of myself… which I’ve done before, and it’s pretty awful.  Just a little tip, for what it’s worth.  Safety first, my friends!

Enjoy!

Sear Roasted Salmon with Soy Lime Reduction

Adapted from Epicurious.com

Serves:  4

• ½ stick butter (try the Alcam, it’s on sale this week)
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ t. red pepper flakes
• ¼ c. brown sugar, packed
• ¼ c. fresh lime juice (please, for goodness sake, do not use bottled lime juice. Blech.)
• ¼ c. soy sauce
• 1 t. cornstarch dissolved in 1 t. water
• 4 – 6 oz. skinless Wild Caught Alaskan King Salmon fillets, cut from the thicker end; room temperature
• Slivered scallions or lime wedges for garnish, optional

Coconut Rice with Scallions and Cilantro for serving, optional.

Preheat oven to 400.

Place a small saucepan over medium low heat and melt the butter.  Add the shallot, garlic, and red pepper flakes and sauté for a few minutes until the shallot begins to soften.  Whisk in the brown sugar, increase the heat a little bit,  and cook for about five minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved and mixture begins to bubble.  Add in the lime juice and the soy sauce, and bring up to a boil.  Boil gently until mixture is reduced to about ¾ c.  (this usually takes me about 7 minutes or so).  Stir the cornstarch and water mixture, then add to the soy / lime mixture.  Simmer gently until sauce thickens a bit, about three more minutes.  Set sauce to the side and keep warm.

Next, place a medium sized, oven proof sauté pan over medium high heat.  Allow the pan to come up to temperature while you pat the salmon fillets dry and season to taste with salt and pepper.  You’ll know the pan is hot enough when a drop of water evaporates almost immediately.  Add enough neutral cooking oil (canola, etc) to coat the bottom of the pan.  Add the salmon fillets, skinned side up.  Leave them there for a full three minutes without fiddling or scooting them around.  After three minutes, gently turn the salmon with a long spatula.  Spoon a bit of the reserved sauce over the fillets, and place them in the oven for 5 minutes to finish cooking.

Remove salmon from the oven.  Place scoops of rice on to four dinner plates, top with salmon fillets and an additional drizzle of sauce (I pass it at the table).  Garnish with slivered scallions or lime wedges if desired.

Coconut Rice with Scallions & Cilantro

Serves 4

• 1 ½ c. water
• 1 c. coconut milk, very well stirred
• 1 ½ c. basmati rice
• 1 t. salt
• 2 scallions, minced
• 1 T. fresh cilantro, minced

Place a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the water, coconut milk, rice, and salt and stir to combine.  Bring to a boil over medium heat.  Cover tightly and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to stand covered for five minutes.  Fluff with a fork, and stir in the scallions and cilantro.  Serve with the Salmon dish.