Fabulous Fish

I can cook fish. With confidence. I realized that this evening as I was eating my dinner. This weekend I was up visiting Dad, and among the things we did was help out at community dinner the church (Grace Loyal Oak UCC) sponsored. It was a free dinner for anyone in the community that walked in the door. The idea was to give a good hot meal to anyone that needed it for whatever reason. I think they were hoping for a bigger turnout, but this was the very first one, it was a beautiful Saturday and the church isn't really convenient for those in need who may not have transportation. It's still a good idea. One of the ladies at church is a retired school cook, so she can put together a couple mean roasters full of shredded barbecued beef and shredded barbecue chicken, and the rest of the church crowd, which includes several Men Who Cook, put together a plethora of side salads, baked beans and desserts. Dad bought a couple of pies to contribute.

Anyhow, we volunteered, pitching in wherever needed. I manned the dessert table, keeping it filled with an assortment of individual servings of all the desserts and helped with cleanup afterwards. It's always nice to see a lot of the "regulars" at church and have a chance to visit. Some of the folks have been going to the church since I was a little girl, and some of them are newer additions to the congregation, but they've all really re-energized the church. Somehow, we've managed to figure out how to get enough people showing up on a regular basis to fulfill the spiritual and community service needs of many good church-going folks and keep the folks that want a nice building and sanctuary happy. It's a pretty liberal congregation, and pretty much anyone and everyone is welcomed with open arms, regardless of race, faith, gender or sexual orientation. There are young and old alike, and plenty of families as well as single people. I'm always glad to go there for various events, including actual Sunday worship, and whenever I go, I wonder why I don't make more of an effort to go more frequently when I am visiting up at Dad's. Of course, they love you there anyhow, even if you only come once a year! This weekend, I went to help with the dinner on Saturday and then came to services on Sunday. There was so much leftover from Saturday that everyone had lunch in the fellowship hall after church, and I'm pretty sure that there was plenty of leftover shredded chicken and desserts, like brownies, that were going to be frozen for later use at Open M lunches and for the weeks that the church hosts a homeless family as part of an interfaith network of churches that hosts temporarily homeless families.

After a weekend of good church crowd food (and a reading of Dad's "Arthritis Today" magazine), I was definitely in the mood for light and healthy fare when I headed home. I stopped at the store and bought some frozen tilapia fillets, along with fresh cilantro, a perfectly ripe avocado and some of those microwave ready green beans from the produce department. Upon arriving home, I preheated the oven according to directions for cooking the fish from its frozen state, and put the fish in a baking dish. I sprinkled it with a mixture of salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin and ground coriander and drizzled it with fresh lime juice. While the fish cooked, I made a fresh salsa from a couple of Dad's homegrown tomatoes, the avocado, some diced red onion, half of a finely diced jalapeno pepper, garlic, chopped fresh cilantro and lime juice. I microwaved the beans according to package directions, and then tossed them with salt, pepper, some extra virgin olive oil and some of Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar. When the fish was done, I plated some and topped it with the fresh salsa and put the beans on the side of the plate. This made enough for two, so I've got tomorrow's dinner already in containers in the refrigerator. The fish was perfectly cooked, light and flaky. That was when I realized, truly and deep in my heart, "I can cook fish!"

Fish and seafood was always something I ordered out because, living in central Ohio, there really wasn't much good affordable fish to cook and when you spend all that money, you'd like something tasty at the end, so cooking it was a nightmare at home. A few years back, though, I tried a couple recipes from "Cooking Light" that began to give me confidence about fish cookery, and that have become tried and true staples for me. One is "Cumin Crusted Chilean Sea Bass" and the other is "Oven Roasted Barbecued Salmon". The first is simply sprinkling fillets of Chilean sea bass with a mix of toasted ground cumin, salt and pepper, searing it in olive oil on one side and then finishing it in a murderously hot oven and spritzing it with fresh lemon juice before serving. Since I do try to actually practice fish conservation at home and since Chilean sea bass is notoriously over fished, I've found that red snapper and cod can substitute quite nicely, depending on their general availability and how well they are being managed as a food source. The salmon is another terribly simple recipe that involves marinating salmon fillets in a mixture of lime and pineapple juice for 15-20 minutes (longer than that and the lime juice starts to cook the fish, leaving you with oven-roasted barbecued salmon seviche!), and then rubbing the flesh with a mixture of salt, pepper, brown sugar, cumin and cinnamon. You cook it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. These recipes have never failed me, but I've always given credit to the recipes. Naturally, me being me, I began to play around with them a bit. I discovered that I could put the cumin crusted sea bass rub on large sea scallops and follow the same general technique to produce perfect scallops. I figured out that Alton Brown's rib rub , which I usually have on hand in the spice cupboard (I make it myself), substitutes quite nicely for the rub in the actual recipe for the salmon. It's that kind of experimentation that gives me the confidence to know that I need not fear the fish in my own kitchen, especially when it comes to preparing it in ways that are light and healthy and full of flavor. Because plain baked or broiled fish is right up there with poached chicken in my book on the "boring" scale.

One of the dietary changes I want to make is to include fish in my diet more regularly, and my revelation today will help. Fish doesn't have to be "special occasion" because I know how to cook it right. It's like falling off a log once you figure it out, and you can't beat most fish for "fast" when it comes to prep and cooking. In truth, fish is definitely one of those foods that lends itself to the KISS principle of cooking. That's "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" Good fresh fish doesn't need much in the way of preparation and saucing, especially if you want to enjoy the taste and texture of the fish. There is virtually no waste with fish, so it really does give me a bang for the buck, especially when we're talking fish like tilapia, catfish and salmon (which is frequently on sale). I can usually buy other types of fish and seafood, like cod, red snapper, tuna steaks, sea scallops , mussels and clams in portion appropriate sizes, which means I'm not required to invest in a whole pound of the stuff. I do try to keep abreast of fish that are endangered and over fished and ones that are full of mercury so that I spend my fish dollars responsibly.

I'm looking forward to having more fish in my diet! And I swear I am not on the payroll of any fish council with my hearty endorsement of fish!