Like a lot of people, we don’t get nearly enough fresh fish in our diet. Fish is so expensive nowadays! Recently, some friends of ours came back from a fishing trip to Alaska. They had almost a hundred pounds of fish that was caught in the wild, cleaned, and packed frozen. Of course, they couldn’t eat it all so we were lucky to get a portion of their haul 🙂
These are four roasts of Arctic Char, a fish similar to trout but is ocean going. I love the cute pink dots going down the side. The fish was unbelievably fresh. It was already cleaned, but somehow were missing the heads (darn it!). I seasoned the inside with s&p and stuffed the cavity with a sprig of rosemary, a few sprigs of thyme, and some thin slices of lemon. Then I secured the cavity with toothpicks.
We had gotten some whole fresh cod at the farmer’s market fish vendor. Annie wanted to do a Chinese-style, steamed fish with black bean but I had other ideas. Don’t know why, but I wanted to try something Belgian-style.
First I browned a sliced onion in butter and olive oil. Then I took the cod and cleaned, filleted it and seasoned it. I laid down half the onion with some chopped chives, parsley and herbs de Provence in a glass baking dish, then laid on the fillets, then the rest of the onion, chives, and herbs. I added a couple of bay leaves, then some slices of lemon and finally poured on some dry vermouth. Baked the dish at 350* for 15 minutes.
Here it is plated up with brown basmati rice on top and steamed wax beans with Dijon mustard-shallot vinaigrette dressing on the bottom. The fish by itself was very lightly flavored but when eaten together with the herbed onions was quite tasty. Turns out, Belgian ain’t bad at all.
We were at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market the other day and stopped by at the Mission Fish vendor. They specialize in fish caught fresh in the Monterey Bay and always have a good selection. They’ll even clean and fillet the fish for you for free. The fish heads and bones they package up for sale, and that’s what we came home with.
We took those fish head and bones and put them in a large stock pot, tossed in some shrimp shells, and added the mirepoix – onions, celery, and carrots – a cup of dry white wine, a quarter of a lemon, some whole peppercorns, a bay leaf, and some herbs de Provence, then covered with water. Brought it to a boil, then simmered for 1 hour before straining out the liquid.
Sometimes we get fish tacos from Rubio’s just to have something different than your normal beef, chicken, or pork taco. But usually, fish tacos are made from breaded, fried fish. It’s not so bad if the fish is fresh and breaded right before frying. But like most chain joints, you really get frozen breaded fish that has been nuked and then fried. Talk about unappetizing!
We had some tilapia fillets that I cubed up and and marinated in lime juice, orange juice, s&p and oregano. Then I pan fried the fish until cooked through.
Here’s my fish taco, with a little of Jeremy’s secret spice rub #2 sprinkled on the fish. Garnished with jack cheese, some pineapple salsa, and some sliced avocados. ’twas good!
