This morning we took the covers off the two hooped raised
bed areas of our garden and found that everything was growing with a minimum of
weeds. We also inspected the exposed garden
area and saw 7 new little Italian parsley plants growing where I had laid the
old parsley plant that went to seed last year on the ground and the two curly
parsley plants growing vigorously. This will be the first full year growing season
in our new raised beds and I am getting very excited.
We made an omelet for brunch with PPI chopped baked ham, sliced
shitake mushrooms, grated Swiss Gruyere, mustard greens from our garden and a diced
shallot and ate it in the sunlight on our newly remodeled patio. While we ate brunch, we decided to try to include
as much produce from our garden as possible in our dishes this summer. We
even talked about finishing the garden by planting fruit trees on the west side
of the garden and moving the fence to the sidewalk.
We had picked a bag of greens last night to stuff the
halibut steak with but we went to the Annat Cohen concert instead, so after a
ride to Rio Bravo on the tandem and a short rest, we decided around 4:00 to
cook the halibut. I pulled and chopped the
white part of two garlic plants and then 3 green onions, a shallot and the leek
Willy pulled from the garden on Thursday and Suzette Cuisinarted them until fine
with about 2 cups of the greens and 2 Tbsp. of butter and stuffed that mixture into
the stomach cavity of the halibut with a squeeze of lemon juice and stood the
fish cavity side up, so it made a cup and stood it on slices of lemon to support and flavor the
fish so it did not stick to the grill.
A butter, herb and green onion stuffing is a
classic Swedish method of baking stuffed fish, so we were still on the page, so
to speak. But things went off course
pretty quickly after we decided to grill the stuffed halibut. We ran out of gas after about twenty minutes
and only achieved a temperature of 400˚.
We decided to bake the fish the rest of the way and that took another
hour because it was an over 1 ½ lb. piece of fish.
I had asked my
favorite fish monger at Ta Lin for a 1 lb. piece of fresh halibut on Friday, and waited while
he fetched a fresh halibut from the big box they are shipped in and cut off its
head and scaled it and cut me a center cut piece of fish that turned out to be
a bit over 1 ½ lb. I thanked him
profusely for his effort when he handed me my $18.00 chunk of halibut. When we took it out of its plastic bag we
saw that he had made an executive decision to cut the fish behind the stomach wall
so that there was an enclosed cup in the piece of fish when placed vertically
on the grill or cookie sheet that could be filled with herbs. So we had a great piece of fish to stuff, but
it was bigger than we usually cook. After
twenty minutes on the grill and then an hour of cooking in the oven, the bottom
of the fish that was closest to the flame had dried out a bit where it was
nearest to the heat source and it finally dawned on us that we should have
wrapped the fish in aluminum foil and baked it in the oven, so that the fish
and vegetables and butter and lemon juice would have steamed together.
Suzette wanted me to make a large quantity of couscous with
green vegetables from the garden, so she fetched the large enameled Le
Creuset casserole and the pot of chicken
stock she had made Thursday from the PPI chicken bones when we made tacos for
Willy’s party, while I rough chopped the other cup of greens. I then put 1 ½ Tbsp. of butter in the casserole
and when it melted, added about 2 cups of chicken stock and 2 Tbsp. of chopped garlic and shallot. When the butter and
stock came to a simmer, I added 1 1/2 cups of couscous and the greens and
covered the pot and reduced the temperature and cooked it for about five minutes.
When I checked it after five minutes I saw
the greens were not cooked yet and realized that there was not enough liquid and
heat to steam the greens, so folded the greens into the couscous and added a
bit more chicken stock and covered the pot and raised the temperature for
another five minutes and then let it sit while the fish baked.
I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Dashwood 2008
Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough District of Australia. Finally, we checked the e fish and when the
flesh was still translucent and would not pull cleanly away from the bone, we decided
it needed ten more minutes in the oven to cook the inside fully, so I stirred
the couscous once more to make sure the vegetables were covered with couscous
and turned on the heat under the casserole to the lowest temperature to heat
but not scorch the couscous.
After ten more minutes I was able to easily split each half
of the fish from the large central bone.
Suzette handed me a plate with a scoop of couscous on it and I laid one
half of the halibut on it. We set the
table in the garden because it was in the shade at 5:20 p.m. and ate a lovely
dinner of baked fish on couscous. I turned
the heat back to 400˚ in the oven and toasted four butter flake dinner rolls I
had bought at Pastian’s Bakery on Wednesday for five minutes. We pulled the hot rolls apart and slathered the
pieces with butter. The hot rolls coated
with butter nicely complemented the delicate fish and couscous infused with slightly
bitter greens.
So this was one of those imperfect meals that teaches you a
lesson or two. Next time we will wrap our
stuffed fish in aluminum foil and steam it in the oven or steam it over
water in a wok. The wine was a little oxidized
or bitter for some other reason, such as age. I made a mental note that I preferred French Sancerre
to Australian Sauvignon Blanc, because I do not like that overly grassy and
slightly bitter flavor of the Australian S.B. and decided to return to Costco
for more of the Chateau Thauvenay Sancerre for $14.99 a bottle and not buy any
more of the Australian Dashwood S.B. for $12.99.
Bon Appétit
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