Sunday, April 7, 2013

Atlantic Wolffish

When the plate's this colourful, you don't really need veggies.
I was sent out to buy trout today. But when I got to the fish counter, there were so many different fish I hadn't seen before, I was hooked. I had no idea what any of them were.  I suspect one of them was cod, but the rest were all Atlantic fish, about which I know nothing.
I knew I wanted "wilde" and not "aquaculture". And I wanted something that resembled the word "fresh" - not frozen.  "Frische" seems like it might mean fresh, right? I hoped filet was the universal term for "bones removed". Shopping roulette was almost complete.
I ended up with steinbeisserfilet, only partly because I could pronounce it. David tells me it translates as stone biter, but wiki tells me that it's a wolf fish. Go ahead and google wolf fish. Then tell me you aren't impressed that I ate it anyways.
The google machine said it resembled catfish, which helped me decide how to prepare it.
Finding a bag of ground almonds in the pantry and a lemon in the fridge, I had a plan.
I dumped some ground almonds in a dish, added 3 cloves of pressed garlic and the zest of a lemon to make a crumbly topping. Spread it on top of the fish and bake at somewhere between 375º and 425º for 20 minutes. (It was 200ºC - so not sure what the exact conversion is.)

Zest a lemon. Squish some garlic. Grind some almonds.

Look. The lemon zest and garlic is visible amongst the ground almonds.
Steinbesserfilet

Quick splash of olive oil. Baking dish lined with parchment.

I hate to waste a lemon, so squeezed half a lemon into the baking pan.

Spoon crumbly almond topping over the top.
(I decided to cut the fish into portions.)

Baked for 20 minutes. Don't overcook fish or it will be yucky and dry.
This was perfect.
The ground almonds baked up nicely and the lemon flavour came through!
Also: lining the pan with parchment makes cleanup so easy.




No comments:

Post a Comment