Of course now that I'm home and getting ready to cook, I'm doubting my fish choice. I actually have no idea what kind of fish I ended up buying, I just got something that looked like the photo on this recipe.
I also had a bit of a disaster as I tried to make a side dish. Thinking the dish might be a little bit light, I thought I'd also make Blazing Beet Soup to serve on the side. After boiling the beets and removing the skin I cut them up into the blender and added some water to puree. A minute or so in, beet puree started squirting out of the blender- Ahhhh! I stopped it and as soon as I lifted the cup off of the blender, beet puree dumped all over the blender, counter, floor and me. It was horrifying and I stood there looking at it for at least 3 minutes before taking any action. Argh. So, no side this evening. Perhaps I'll try the soup again another day.
After the soup disaster, ingredients are prepared for the main dish. Pretty simple ingredients- no?
The first step for tonights dish was make the bruschetta-esque sauce. I had the tomatoes, onion and garlic, but no anchovies. After a little searching, I found that soy sauce can be substituted- 1/2 teaspoon per anchovy.
As soon as I started handling the fish I realized that my market mission wasn't so successful after all. They had cut the fish into filets, but the center bone was still there and very much attached to one half of the filet. Eeek! A quick google search brought me to this website where I attempted to learn how to de-bone, but I'm just not talented enough (I also don't have the right knives...). I did skin the fish per the instructions, but knew that the dish would need to be altered. After some thought, I decided to bake the fish and then I would remove the cooked fish from the bone and make more of a "fish salad" a la chicken salad.
The oh-so-wrong fish
When I took the fish out of the oven and started attempting to remove the meat from the bones, the panic started. In fact, when Mohamed got home I told him "Ahhh, dinner is going to be gross!" The meat removal process was not pretty. In fact, that's why there are no pictures post-roasting until the final product, it just wasn't going as I'd imagined or how the recipe layed it out. I probably managed to salvage a mere half of the fish. Also with the tomato mixture cooking it smelled too much like soy sauce. Argh!
There was no plan be so we had to go for it. I bought mini-baguettes and toasted them in the oven before rubbing them with garlic. Even that didn't go very smoothly, the garlic didn't seem to want to transfer to the bread! Tossing the halved garlic, I topped it with fresh basil (YUMMM!), some tomato mixture, some of the "shredded" fish, then more tomato.
My food photography needs some work
I was almost afraid to serve it to Mohamed and his brother, but they are troopers. They folded their bread over and ate it as a sandwich while I sort of ate it tostada style. Shockingly, it was good!
The verdict- a very pleasant surprise despite having the wrong fish. It was flavorful, light and something different for a change. Mohamed removed some of his basil (not sure why), but also thought it was really good. Even brother Abdelmalik liked it. I'll definitely make it again, assuming I can find a better fish. It would be really yummy with a true filet.
If you'd like to try it out, here's the recipe from Epicurious: Roasted Cod on Large Garlic Croutons
Tomorrow is Sunday so that means Mohamed will be home to help out with our Roman Style Pizza with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes. Can't wait!
photo by Jeff Lipsky for Epicurious
1 comments:
I cannot stand how blogger puts in double spaces everywhere. For anyone who may be blaming the terrible formatting on my, I swear it's not my fault! If anyone knows the secret reasonable spacing, I'm all ears.
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