Parmesan & Nut-Crusted Fish

First, as I type this, I am devouring some strawberry and basil scones concocted by my sister.  Rest assured I'll track down the supposed simple recipe and post here.  She swears she thought them inedible and almost trashed them.  Heathen!

In the interim, I've been day dreaming about a favorite recipe of ours: essentially, a parmesan and nut-crusted fish.  Obviously, I found it critical to share.

At some point, I found a similar recipe in the classic Better Homes & Gardens red & white cookbook, but it's been modified and tweaked so much I don't think I can give credit there.  The best part about this "recipe" is that it works equally well on the grill (my favorite), in the oven or on the stove top.

I usually start it on foil for the grill or in a parchment lined dish for the oven.  Stove top (semi-fried) is probably the least healthy way, but it tastes pretty delightful.  My favorite fish for this is halibut steaks, but we've used tilapia, halibut filet or any other white fish with a nice, meaty flavor.

Typically, I start by soaking or rubbing the fish in olive oil, and then in a separate bowl I stir together about two cups of seasoned bread crumbs, about one cup of nuts (diced walnuts or pecans or packaged nut topping all work well), a healthy dose to taste of Italian seasoning and about a cup of fresh shredded parmesan.  After mixing it all up, I coat (thickly) the fish.

For the grill, just setting the fish with the skin side down on the foil, pouring on olive oil and then pouring on this mix and patting it to a nice crust works perfectly - I wrap up the foil package and hand it over to the keeper of the grill, who takes it from there.

For the oven, I pop the whole thing in somewhere around 375 (a little higher doesn't hurt) for 15 - 20 minutes.  It's a pretty difficult dish to mess up.  I like a nice brown to the crust and adjust accordingly.  For the stove top, I usually use smaller fillets with the skin off and just saute them in a good amount of olive or cooking oil, turning them and then keeping warm in the oven while I finish side items like some asparagus and wild rice.

It's a great summer (or anytime) meal, and I've got to dash off to the store for fish now to satisfy the craving.

Enjoy!

Baked Salmon & Quinoa Yumminess

Our standard salmon has just about reached perfection, and that happy moment when a recipe or way you make something becomes second nature - no double checking instructions.

I've purchased salmon at three places recently - our regular grocery store, a dedicated butcher/seafood market and a gourmet grocery store that brings in fresh fish daily.  My husband preferred the third, but I liked the butcher's salmon best.

I've been lining my baking dish with parchment paper, but last night tried a combo of foil on the bottom (to protect the dish from blackening and make cleanup easy).  It worked, but I didn't like the amount of waste.  I think parchment will remain the standard because by the time the fish is done, it is practically decomposing before my eyes, so I don't feel so badly about throwing it away.


I simply lay the salmon on the parchment and douse it with the combo above (all of it) and put it in the oven for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees.  You can't mess this up - just bake until the salmon flakes nicely.  In our house, we like very well done salmon with a bit of browning, so I usually turn it up to broil for the last 10 minutes while prepping some quinoa and warming some sourdough bread.  Delightful.  It makes the garlic cloves brown up nicely and deepens the flavor of the salmon.

A note on the quinoa - it's such a great item and so underused.  I grabbed a box and pulled some of last summer's diced bell peppers, onion and yellow squash out of the freezer (I flash froze them to cut down on retained liquid/frost).  I quick sautéed these in a bit of olive oil and then added about 1.25 cups of quinoa to a can of vegetarian broth plus water.  It was yummy and snuck our veggies into dinner.  Served it all up with a basic Barefoot riesling - it was surprisingly perfect on a cold night!  Kind of like craving ice cream in winter, I guess.  Enjoy!

Bending the Rules, Loving the Results (and Crawfish Po' Boys)

It's so easy to assume that a food lover should follow all the rules: wielding a knife like a Culinary Institute graduate, perfecting sublime desserts, using the fanciest gear and gadgets and the freshest local ingredients.  Rather, I would argue, we all aspire to that, but everyday cooking is an adventure best tackled with zest and a willingness to fail miserably (and pick up takeout or make a PB&J when the situation demands it).

One of tonight's dinner guests prior to walking the plank

To wit, I submit tonight's dinner: crawfish po'boys in January.  Crawfish are neither in season nor easy to find, but one's cravings do not always align with practicality.  So, tonight we picked up three pounds of whole, seasoned, frozen (gasp!) crawfish from a local gourmet outpost along with crusty, cheesy (also a broken rule) La Brea bread and a remoulade sauce.  We bent other rules with abandon: the market didn't happen to have shredded lettuce or an appetizing-looking head of iceberg, so we subbed in some lovely spinach leaves already at the house.  Tomatoes aren't at their best right now, so we skipped them.  Home fries would have been delightful on the side, but we were starving, so a bag of sea salted, lower salt Ruffles accompanied us home.

We thawed and steamed (about 5 minutes) the crawfish and peeled them with visions of mid-April crawfish boils dancing in our heads, split and toasted the bread lightly, slathered it with remoulade and arranged the crawfish and greens.  The chips finished out the plate along with a frosty Negra Modelo apiece.  Hey - Abita Purple Haze and all the right touches would have been brilliant, but guess what?  The meal was absolutely fantastic because it satisfied a craving, scratched an itch, came together speedily and met all our (fairly low) expectations.  Isn't that what time in the kitchen is all about?

Asian Peanut Noodles with Tofu

Ingredients

Olive Oil, 2 tbsp
Garlic, 2 tbsp
Red Pepper, 1 large, julienned
Carrot Strips, 1/2 cup
Sugar Snap Peas, about 30 (1 cup or so)
Firm Tofu, 8 oz, cubed
Egg Noodles, 6 - 12 oz package
Peanut Butter, 2 tbsp
Rice Vinegar, 4 tbsp
Brown Sugar, 4 tbsp
Lime Juice, 3 tbsp or juice of 1 lime
Sesame Oil or Olive Oil, 2 tbsp
Red Pepper Flakes
Green Onions, fresh, chopped
Asian sweet chili sauce to taste (like Mae Ploy, available in Asian food stores)

Directions

Sauté garlic in olive or sesame oil in a wok or pan
Add pepper, carrots & peas and cook for 5 - 10 mins
Add tofu - cook 5 - 10 mins
Start water boiling for egg noodles, then cook 4 - 6 mins
Mix remaining ingredients (except red pepper flakes, green onion and chili sauce) with a fork or whisk in a small bowl and add just as noodles finish cooking for 1 - 2 mins on low heat
Drain egg noodles thoroughly and add to vegetables and sauce, toss to coat and heat
Serve Add 1 cup barley, broth and 3 cups water
Simmer approx 20 mins
Whisk together flour and milk thoroughly, add to soup
Simmer 5 - 10 more mins

Source/Lineage

This recipe was modified (vegetarian) from the recipe

featured in Fitness Magazine - January 2011.

The Nitty Gritty

Nutritional info per serving obtained via SparkPeople Recipes:

• Servings Per Recipe: 4
• Calories: 450
• Total Fat: 19.0 g
• Cholesterol: 54.2 mg
• Sodium: 323.8 mg
• Total Carbs: 64.3 g
• Dietary Fiber: 5.9 g
• Protein: 21.2 g 

 

Inspiration

I'd been craving an Asian style noodle dish with peanut sauce, and I've been trying to amp up my protein intake.  At a glance, this recipe looked perfect, but then I found it was a cold salad-style meal.  No good.  I wanted a hot dish for dinner.  So, with a few tweaks - replacing shrimp with tofu for a change, using egg instead of cellophane noodles (purely based on pantry contents) and thickening up the dressing to serve as a sauce, we were all set.

Added benefit - this dish was an enormous hit with my family, including the seven year old - she devoured it.  I think it was just sweet enough for her, and the vegetables were non-threatening, crunchy and a little sweet as well.  Nutritional information is without any toppings.  The grown-ups each added the chili sauce and green onions to our servings, and it was great.  Healthy and tasty.

Best of all, this meal took literally 20 minutes from walking into the kitchen to putting it on the table.  You can't beat that!

Enjoy!