Archive for May 18th, 2008

This weekend I turned to fish. Unfamiliar with fish, I am not sure what to do with it—I need more experience. I chose some healthy halibut filets, tail side, and sautéed them in butter in a non-stick pan. Before cooking the fish, I applied salt, pepper, and a whisp of paprika.

Before they were completely cooked-through, I kept them warm in a 200-degree oven.

In the same non-stick pan, I created a buerre blanc sauce. I sautéed green onion (scallion) in butter, and then added white wine, reducing this mixture, then mounted it with a teaspoon or so of heavy cream. I reduced this further. Next, I added pats of cold butter, and stirred it briskly using a silicon spatula. I also added lemon zest. You basically keep adding melting butter over low heat, one pat at a time, and you build-up this creamy sauce.

Of course, this was my third beurre blanc and it too separated. I think my heat was too high. So… CRAP! But I still poured some on the fish, and it wasn’t a complete disaster; flavor was there, just not the texture.

For the spinach, I used one box frozen spinach, heated it up in hot water; then squeezed most of the water out. I cooked garlic in butter, added the hot spinach, and mounted this with more heavy cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. I pretty typical creamed spinach recipe.

The two together were very nice. Delicious, in fact.