Crispy Fish with Lemon-Dill Sauce

I had a gaping hole in my weekly menu for Sunday night.  I figured I'd pick up some fish and a vegetable, though I wasn't really sure which fish or what to do with it.  Whole Foods quickly answered the which question with pollock fillets on sale for an astounding $3.99 a pound!  A white flaky fish?  I then remembered an oven-fried fish recipe I've been coveting from Cooking Light.  And voilà, dinner is served.

Crispy Fish with Lemon-Dill Sauce

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
1/2 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp onion powder
3/4 tsp garlic powder
4 (6-oz) skinless cod fillets, or other white flaky fish
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
Cooking spray
1/4 cup canola mayonnaise
2 tbsp pickle relish
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp chopped fresh dill

1.  Preheat broiler.

2.  Place egg in shallow dish.  Combine panko, paprika, onion powder, and garlic powder in a another shallow dish.  Sprinkle fish evenly with pepper and salt.  Dip each fillet in egg white, then dredge in panko mixture; place on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray.  Broil 4 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.

3.  Combine mayonnaise, relish, lemon juice, and dill.  Serve sauce with fish.

The Verdict:  Looks like fried fish, tastes like fried fish, but not a drop of oil is used.

Let me tell you, the combination of delicious fresh fish and crispy coating is amazing.  Plus, the homemade tartar sauce with the hint of dill was phenomenal.  My husband and I enjoyed dipping the fish in the sauce, while my son thought it was a side dish and ate it with a fork. 

The other part I loved about this dish was using the broiler.  Five minutes to coat the fish, eight minutes to cook it.  Can you get any easier?

This is THE recipe when you're in the mood for fried fish.  I can't say enough about how good it was.

Cumin-Cayenne Blackened Fish

Here's another one from Cooking Light.  A few weeks ago I'd made a picatta with flounder and bought two packages of fish, unsure of how much was in each.  Turns out, it had eight thin fillets in each.  Which isn't problematic, as we all like fish in my family.  But with a package of fish in the freezer, I needed to find something to do with it, and voilà, it was this.  The original recipe says tilapia, but I say use what white, flaky fish floats your boat.  Take that, fishmongers.

Cumin-Cayenne Blackened Fish

1 tbsp olive oil
4 (6-oz) tilapia fillets
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray

1.  Preheat broiler.

2.  Rub olive oil evenly over fish.  Combine cumin, salt, garlic powder, and peppers; sprinkle evenly over fish.  Arrange fish on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray; broil 5 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or desired degree or doneness.

The Verdict:  OK, couple problems with this recipe.  Well, mainly one.

I read, but it didn't compute, that it's called cumin-cayenne blackened fish.  Cayenne.  Capsaicin.  Hot.  I cut back on the cayenne for our fish and even wiped it off of my son's fillet.  But even still, three bites into it he declared, "This fish hurts my mouth."  My husband laughed.  How can fish hurt your mouth?  I then laid out the ingredients, to which my darling berated me as a wicked and cruel parent. 

Sigh.

So if your family likes spicy, this recipe will be fine.  If your family prefers one out of four chilies on the spiciness meter on a menu, skip this one. 

Frankly, with or without the argument over too-spicy-for-the-kid, this is not Cooking Light's best recipe.  While it tasted fine, there was nothing at all interesting about it.  It might have been better with a wonderful and fresh fish, but even then, the highlight wouldn't have been the spices.  It would have been the fish. 

Nah.  Good for, "I have fish, what combination of stuff can I throw on top of it?" cooking.  But if you're looking for James Beard Award kudos, keep fishing.

Piccata-Style Fish Fillets with Thin Pasta and Wilted Spinach

I tried really hard to get my husband involved in picking our meals this week.  He was all for leaving the decisions entirely up to me, but finally I was able to talk him into choosing one recipe for each "category"--beef, chicken, vegetarian and fish.  This was his fish choice, a recipe that first appeared in Every Day with Rachael Ray.  I found some of the directions were confusing and other parts of the recipe didn't work, so I've adjusted accordingly. 

Picatta-Style Fish Fillets with Thin Pasta and Wilted Spinach

Salt and pepper
1/2 lb thin egg pasta or angel hair pasta
4-8 thin white fish fillets, like tilapia, snapper or flounder
Old Bay seasoning
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp butter
2 large garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
1/2 cup white wine
2 lemons
1/4 cup drained capers
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
3/4 lb fresh spinach, cleaned and trimmed
A little freshly grated nutmeg

1.  Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with tin foil, lightly spray with cooking spray and set aside.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, add the pasta and cook until al dente.  Drain, reserving about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water.  Meanwhile, pat the fish dry and season with salt, pepper and a little Old Bay.  On a plate, mix the flour and cornstarch.  Coat the fish in the flour mixture.

2.  In a large skillet, heat 1 tbsp olive oil, over medium-high heat.  Add 2 tbsp butter and let it foam up, then add the fish fillets and cook, turning once, until golden-brown and firm, 4 to 6 minutes.  Place cooked fillets on the cookie sheet and place in the oven to keep warm.  Wipe out the pan and return to heat.  Add 1/2 tbsp oil and the remaining butter to melt.  Stir in the garlic for 1 minute, then stir in the wine for another minute.  Add 1 tsp grated lemon peel and the juice of 1 lemon.  Thinly slice the other lemon and stir the slices into the sauce, along with the capers and parsley. 

3.  Remove fish from the oven and place on a platter or large plate.  Spoon the sliced lemons and half of the butter sauce over the fish.  Cover with foil.

4.  Add the reserved pasta water and the pasta to the skillet.  Add salt and pepper; toss.  Transfer the pasta to another platter or large bowl.  Add the remaining 1/2 tbsp oil to the skillet.  Add the spinach, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook to wilt.  Serve the fish with a little pasta and spinach alongside.

The Verdict:  Good choice, honey.  This was a pretty delicious meal.

The original recipe called for four thin fish fillets.  If all you need is four, use only four.  I bought frozen fish and wasn't sure how it had been packaged; it ended up that there were eight very thin fillets of flounder.  The flour/cornstarch mixture makes a lot of coating, so if you're going for the smaller number of fillets, you may want to reduce the portions of flour and cornstarch.  I didn't use it all even with the eight. 

Also, the original recipe said just to move your fish to a plate and tent with foil.  If you can cook quickly and know this recipe well, you could do it that way.  But what I found is that tenting the fish made it sweat, therefore it's crispy batter turned mushy.  It still tasted good, but when you're adding a liquid sauce on top of that, you might not be happy with the consistency.  I highly suggest leaving them in the oven until the very last minute to avoid that softening. 

Otherwise, the taste of this dish is fantastic.  Lemon and butter with fish is always a hit, so the addition of the capers and garlic only enhanced the already great taste.  All together, it makes a classic piccata sauce, which you generally find on veal or chicken.  Fish was perfect.  Pasta is a no-brainer side and the spinach, especially when coupled with lemon and garlic, put it over the top.

It wasn't an easy 30-minute meal, but it was worth the effort.  Everyone enjoyed it, including the little guy.  (I preemptively picked off all his capers, though, as to avoid the "I no like the green stuff" conversation.)

Saffron Fish Stew with White Beans

My husband and I went on our first date when I was on vacation, house sitting with a friend in an amazing beach house on the North Shore of Massachusetts. I'm so glad that I met him when I was in such a magical place. The master bedroom was almost entirely windows and overlooked the sea. The back patio had a large, wrought-iron table and chair set and was canopied by a real sail. But my favorite part of the house, by far, was the gourmet kitchen. Not only was the kitchen equipment top-notch, but we were told to feel free to use anything in it food-wise. Never in my life have I ever seen so many spices and condiments. I was like a kid in a candy store.

My own house, which is fantastic but not nearly as cool, has a pretty impressive spice cabinet these days. And I'm really psyched that I've added two new spices to my collection for this week's menu. One of the spices is a replacement for the ground coriander that spilled all over my kitchen, if you recall that story. I figured that if I've needed coriander twice in recent memory, it was time to get more.

The coriander is for Saffron Fish Stew with White Beans, a recipe I adapted from the April 2010 Cooking Light. The original recipe calls for ground fennel, but I figured the dish could stand for another vegetable and added a fennel bulb instead. If you don't want quite that much fennel (which, if you're not familiar with fennel, has a light licorice taste), feel free to substitute with one teaspoon of the ground fennel.

Saffron Fish Stew with White Beans

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup prechopped onion

1 small fennel bulb, bulb only, chopped (reserve tops for garnish)

1/2 tsp ground coriander

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp grated fresh orange rind

1/4 tsp saffron threads, crushed

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups clam juice

1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1/4 tsp salt

1 pound flounder filet, cut into (2-inch) pieces

1. Heat oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, fennel, coriander, garlic and thyme; sauté 5 minutes. Stir in rind and saffron; add water, clam juice, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in salt, fish, and beans; cook 5 minutes. Top with fennel fronds.

The Verdict: Super easy, super quick and super tasty.

It reminded me a lot of the Venetian Fish Stew (http://kinaymandinner.blogspot.com/2010/10/venetian-fish-stew.html) I prepared a while back, but it's a lot less work. While I liked the variety of seafood in the Venetian stew, I think the clam juice in this dish gave it a much more developed flavor. And obviously, cutting up one type of fish rather than preparing many, helped to bring dinner to the table much faster.

I was really surprised that our toddler loved the broth since he generally eschews the "soup" part of soup, but he drank quite a bit of it. He was also crazy about the fish. As I cleaned up supper dishes he yelled, "One more bite!" and came running into the kitchen for one, two, and three additional pieces of fish.

Definitely serve this dish with a nice, crusty bread. A good bottle of Sav Blanc wouldn't hurt either.

Fish Cakes

Really, this recipe is called Lemon-Parsley Fish Cakes. But as you might recall, I'm not a fan of fresh parsley. And calling them Lemon Fish Cakes would be weird. Who wants to eat fish that has equal parts lemon? (It doesn't, but that's what the name implies.) So we'll just call it Fish Cakes, nice and simple.

Fish Cakes

1 lb fresh white fish, such as pollock or cod

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

6 tbsp breadcrumbs

3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (optional)

coarse salt and ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place fish in baking dish; rub with 1 tbsp oil. Roast fish in the oven until cooked through, 15-20 minutes. Let cool completely, then pat dry with paper towels. Flake with fork.

2. In a large bowl, combine fish, egg, scallions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, breadcrumbs, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix gently until ingredients just hold together. Form mixture into eight equal-sized patties.

3. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large, nonstick skillet oven medium heat. Cook cakes until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Serve hot.

4. Before cooking, cakes can also be frozen for later use. Freeze on a baking sheet until firm, then wrap each in plastic and store in resealable freezer bags, up to one month. Thaw before cooking and follow step #3.

The Verdict: Light and tasty! Each of us liked them.

I think my favorite part of them is the hint of Dijon mustard. The fish itself is mild, so that slight kick really works to add some pizazz.

The only part about this recipe, and I'm willing to guess it isn't the recipe exactly as I've made these before, was that they fell apart. The three in the photo you see are the three that made it in one piece. I think the others fell apart because of a number of reasons, including adding them to the pan before it was hot enough and crowding them together. Both no-nos. I also need a new skillet. Ah, how ironic. I blog constantly about food and recipes, yet have sub-par cookery.

These would be great with a spinach salad. We had ours with sliced cucumbers and homemade hummus. That recipe to follow...and it's a keeper!

Bacalao Guisado (Cod Fish Stew)

Well, if two weeks ago it was stew week and last week it was Mediterranean week, this week it's fake recipe week. What with yesterday's not-exactly-bolognese and today's bacalao-less bacalao.

This recipe for Bacalao Guisado isn't exactly fake. It's just that traditionally bacalao is made with salted, dried cod fish and I prefer to use fresh. You can use whichever you prefer, but don't forget that salted, dried cod fish needs to be soaked in water and rinsed well or else you're going to have salt stew.

Bacalao Guisado, or cod fish stew, is probably my favorite Puerto Rican food. But it's not just Puerto Rican; you can find recipes for something similar in Cuba, Portugal, Italy...the list goes on and on. It's a really easy recipe to make with fairly simple ingredients. If your supermarket carries Goya products, you can almost certainly find sofrito, a salsa-looking condiment that adds wonderful flavor to soups, stews, and beans. If you can't find sofrito, omit it and substitute it with some cilantro. It's not a true substitution, but it will help to give the stew an authentic flavor. The same holds true for the adobo, a seasoning. If you can't find it, substitute a half teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

Bacalao Guisado

1 to 1 1/2 lbs fresh cod fish

1 medium potato, cubed

1 medium onion, sliced

1 tbsp minced garlic

1/2 each red and green peppers, cut into strips

2 tbsp sofrito

6 oz tomato sauce

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp Adobo with pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

10-12 green olives with pimentos

1 tsp capers

3/4 cup water

1. Barely cover potatoes with water and bring to a boil; cover and cook for 5 minutes until nearly soft. Drain and set aside.

2. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion, and the red and green peppers and cook for 3-4 minutes until the onion becomes translucent. Add potato, garlic, sofrito, tomato sauce, tomato paste, adobo, olives, capers and water. Bring to a boil.

3. Meanwhile, cut cod fish into bite sized pieces and add to the pot when the stew comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer; cover and cook for 20 minutes or until fish is cooked through and the stew has thickened.

The Verdict: More please!

This is such a great, easy recipe. It also smells wonderful as it simmers because it's not just the heavy smell of cooking fish. I also love this recipe because in comparison to so many Puerto Rican dishes that are fried, this is simmered. It's also all fresh vegetables.

Speaking of vegetables, feel free to use whatever root vegetable you'd like with this stew. Yucca or cassava would not only be great, but very authentic. Since I had potatoes in my house (which I never do), I opted to use those up.

It's suggested to eat this dish with, or even over, white rice. But I didn't feel this was necessary because of the potato. A nice accompaniment, however, would be a fresh, crusty bread.

Venetian Fish Stew

Ah, how I miss dining out. We still go out to dinner, but 99% of the time it's somewhere that along side your basket of bread you also get a packet of crayons. But I'm talking linen table cloths, lots of dressed up adults, and a formidable menu that has no grilled cheese. Just the other day Noyan and I were drooling over memories of bouillabaisse. He asked if I could make some but just knew Amir wouldn't go for it. Besides, the idea of making rouille (a sauce served with bouillabaisse that has 100 or so ingredients) makes me need a nap.

So when I was going through my recipes for the week, I was excited to see one for Venetian Fish Stoup from Everyday with Rachel Ray. It still was a lot of work, but it was Sunday night. And it was a bit on the costly side with all that seafood. But it didn't involve rouille. Game on.

Venetian Fish Stew

3 tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 tsp curry powder

1 pinch saffron threads

Grated peel of 1 lemon

Grated peel of 1/2 orange

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 bulb of fennel with fronds, fronds

chopped and reserved, bulb thinly sliced

1/2 dry white wine

One 14-oz can crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 lb cod, cut into chunks

1/2 lb medium to large shrimp, deveined and tails removed

1 1/2 lbs mussels, scrubbed and debearded

1/2 lb squid, sliced 1/2 inch thick

Crusty bread, for dunking

1. In a large, deep skillet or soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, curry, saffron and citrus peels and cook for 2 minutes. Add the onion and fennel slices and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.

2. Pour in the wine, then add the tomatoes and broth and bring to a boil over high heat. Season all of the seafood with salt and pepper. Add the cod and shrimp, then the mussels and the squid, to the pan. Cover tightly and simmer until cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Uncover and carefully stir the stew. Ladle into shallow bowls and top with fennel fronds. Serve the crusty bread for dunking.

The Verdict: Well, it's not from a fancy restaurant, but it's fancy restaurant good!

Amir ate bread, which was disappointing because he loves fish and shrimp. But Noyan and I both enjoyed it immensely. The citrus zests give it an interesting punch of flavor and the seafood, particularly the squid, were all tender (as compared to little rubber bands as squid tends to do).

The original recipe calls for the zest of an entire orange. I did think that my stew had a bit too much orange flavor and would recommend just half. I also think in the tradition of fish stew, you can mix up your seafood if you like. If scallops are more your thing, omit one of the shellfish. Or replace the cod with a different fish. Or several small pieces of different fish.

Another change from the original recipe is that Rachel Ray calls recipes like this "stoup." It's her way of saying that it's too thick to be soup and too thin to be stew. Something about that word irritates me. Just call it stew. The word "stoup" is, well, "stoup"-id.

If you'd like to try this recipe but have never eaten mussels before, no fear. If you buy a farm-raised bag of them from a reputable place, like Whole Foods, little needs to be done. They should be debearded already; just look to see if there's hairy looking stuff sticking out of your mussel. If there is, yank it out. But don't do it until they're ready to cook or they will die. And speaking of dead, don't cook them if the shell is open. A good test is to squeeze the shell shut. If it stays closed, it's OK, but if it springs back open, throw it away. They shouldn't be gritty, either. But to be on the safe side, give them a scrub in the sink, then let them set in ice water until you're ready to cook.

Buttered Toast Crispy Fishwiches

While cooking this dish the other night, I was thinking about people who don't like fish. I'm sure, in part, the reason I like it so much is because I grew up in New England. Fish like haddock and cod, as well as lobster are easy to get, not to mention fresh. I think I took that fact for granted until my dad and stepmother moved to Florida. They missed haddock miserably and were excited to find a local restaurant that served fish n' chips from haddock flown in every Friday.



This sandwich comes from Everyday With Rachel Ray and it doesn't answer, "Yeah, so, I live where cod is hard to come by...what now?" For those of you who want to make this recipe but are a little worried about where to get the fish, I'd suggest using frozen fillets. Check your local Trader Joe's if you have one around; they claim that their fish is flash frozen right on the boats. This recipe calls for cod; you can use haddock and it will work just as well.

Buttered Toast Crispy Fishwiches
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs
1 tbsp Old Bay Seasoning
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
Grated peel of one lemon
A couple of tbsp chopped fresh thyme
A couple of tbsp finely chopped fresh chives
4 pieces of cod (6 oz each)
Salt and pepper
Flour, for coating
2 egg whites, beaten
4 sandwich sized English muffins, toasted and lightly buttered

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, pour the melted butter over the panko and work it into the crumbs to evenly distribute. Season with the Old Bay, onion powder, garlic powder, lemon peel, thyme and chives.
2. Season the cod with salt and pepper, then coat in the flour, egg whites and panko mixture. Arrange on a broiled pan or a cooling rack placed on a cookie sheet (spray the cooling rack with Pam). Bake until deeply golden and crisp, about 20 minutes.
3. Place the English muffin bottoms on a work surface. Dress the slices with whatever you like--cole slaw, lettuce, bread and butter pickle slices, sweet relish, onion, lemon juice or malt vinegar. (Or all of it.) Place a piece of fish on each and top with the remaining muffins.

The Verdict: I haven't been on for a few days. That's because this was so good, we're eating it every night from now on and the blog is finished. Thanks for reading. Bye.

Of course, I'm kidding but these sandwiches were really, reeeeally good. Make sure to serve them fresh out of the oven so that the coating stays nice and crispy. Cooled fish still tastes good, but part of the charm is the crispiness.

The original recipe is a bit specific about how to top the sandwich but seriously, whatevs. Do what tastes good to you. Between you, me and the lamppost, we topped ours with sweet relish and slices of cheese. Rachel doesn't mention anything about cheese. So sue me. Also in the original recipe, it calls for fresh thyme and lemon peel. I didn't have fresh thyme, so I used about a teaspoon of dried and it came out just as well. Nor did I have a lemon, so I used dried lemon peel which you can find in the spice aisle.

Another suggestion, which to the kitchen master is a "no duh": when dunking your fish from flour to egg to panko, set up an assembly line. One next to the other. If you don't, you make a mess. I'm not a kitchen master and used to do it pell mell all the time. A giant mess ensues. Which also reminds me: this recipe uses lots of dishes. If you pop things into the dish washer as you go, or into a sink of hot, soapy water, you can enjoy your dinner afterwards instead of grumble about the disaster in the kitchen waiting.

By the way, I think the picture for this recipe doesn't do it justice at all. It looks bland and brown. Don't judge the sandwich from the picture. Trust me, you'd rather me cook you dinner than take your family photo.