Cornmeal Crusted Baked Fish, Buttermilk and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Rosemary, and a How-to-Fillet Tutorial Video

As you can tell by the long title, dear readers, there's lots going on this week.


Wanting to use the low-fat buttermilk left after making last week’s Oven Fried Green Tomatoes, a couple of days later I put together a dinner that used it for both freshly-filleted fish and mashed potatoes. So this week, you’re getting not one, not two, but three featured items…


• Cornmeal Crusted Baked Fish
• Buttermilk and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Rosemary, and
• A tutorial video on cutting your own fish fillet for the baked fish recipe!
The photo at right also includes homemade herbed buttermilk biscuits (click here for the recipe) and another favorite side dish, asparagus bundles, gently seasoned asparagus wrapped in glorious bacon (or, in this case, glorious low-fat turkey bacon). The vegetable bundles side dish is from a Paula Deen recipe (using green beans) that you’ll find at
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/green-bean-bundles-recipe/index.html .


So let’s get started!


First, you’re going to need fish fillets. You can buy them, of course, but paying for a package of fish at the supermarket doesn’t make for a very interesting video. And so, for those so inclined, here’s how to fillet your own.




Now that you’ve got your fillets, either by buying some or cutting them yourself, let’s make the rest of dinner. (The recipes below make four servings.) Fish generally cooks fairly quickly, so we’ll do the mashed potatoes first. This recipes uses baked potatoes instead of the usual boiled ones; as with most dishes normally made with boiled potatoes, baking the potatoes gives a deeper flavor that really adds something extra.


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.


Place 4 russet potatoes on a baking sheet and perforate with a fork. Bake for 45 – 60 minutes until a fork penetrates easily.


While the potatoes are baking, prepare the roasted garlic (which has a wonderful sweet, creamy texture useful for many dishes) as follows:


Slice the top off two heads of garlic, leaving the papery skin on. (Slice off enough to expose some of the garlic inside.)


Place the garlic heads on foil. Drizzle with olive oil and ½ teaspoon of white wine vinegar. Wrap the foil around the garlic heads and roast in the oven with the potatoes till lightly browned and soft, about 30 minutes. When done, set aside until needed.


When the potatoes have finished baking, cut into cubes, and put them and the roasted garlic through a food mill and into a bowl. (You can use a masher instead, but the food mill gives a smoother texture that works especially well with the roasted garlic and the buttermilk we’ll be adding in the next step.)


Once the potatoes and garlic are in the bowl, add the ¾ cup of butter substitute, ½ cup low-fat buttermilk, and 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary, and mix till smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.


Now let’s prepare the fish:


Preheat the oven (or, if you made the potatoes, increase the temperature) to 450 degrees.


Pour ½ cup of low-fat buttermilk into a shallow pan. Put four serving-size fish fillets into the milk and let sit for 15 minutes.
While the fish is resting in the milk, prepare the breading by combine the following coating ingredients in another shallow pan or a sealable plastic bag: ½ cup cornmeal; 1 tablespoon kosher salt; ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper; 1 teaspoon garlic powder; 1 tablespoon dried parsley; 1 teaspoon dried thyme; 1 teaspoon dried rosemary; and the zest of 1 lemon or orange.
Working one fillet at a time, remove the fillets from the buttermilk and place them in the breading until well coated. Place each coated fillet on an oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet.


Bake until the fish is cooked and flaky, about 10-12 minutes, turning them over half way.


To serve, drizzle each filet with a little olive oil and garnish each plate with a lemon wedge.




And that should be plenty for one week!


Drop me a like if you’d like a cookbook-style copy of this recipe. (Be sure to include your e-mail address.) And be sure to visit again next week for another delicious, reduced-fat dish! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Breaded Baked Italian Style Fish Fillets

Ciao amici!



This week’s recipe is a little unusual in that it’s the first of a two part combination. Like a good movie, a well-made dish has both a star and high-quality supporting players. My offering today is the star of the dish – a breaded Italian style baked fish fillet – and next week we’ll continue with a delicious (and just a bit unusual) brown rice side dish that goes especially well with it.


I’ve made this twice: once with scrod and once with pollock. Both worked equally well, and I expect any other white fish would too. I’ve not prepared other types of fish this way, but I have every reason to believe it would be successful as well. (I also might give this a try with chicken breasts some time soon.)


You'll see that the recipe is simple, and the result is delicious. A couple of notes before we begin will fill out some of the recipe’s details:
• Before coating the fish with the seasoned bread crumb mixture, I seasoned the fish itself with a bit of olive oil, and a mix of salt, pepper and garlic powder. I like this much better than having all the seasoning in the breading since it distributes the flavor throughout the entire bite, rather than relying only on the breading.
• Instead of plain bread crumbs, I like to give the breading a more varied texture by using a mixture of plain crumbs and panko. (Panko, for anyone unfamiliar with it, is made from bread without crusts and has a texture that is crisper than plain bread crumbs. Originally used in Japanese cooking, panko is now in common use all over and can usually be found at the supermarket right next to the plain breadcrumbs.) For me, plain breadcrumbs, while very good, seem to say, “Good evening. I’m your breaded coating and I’m going to help make eating this fish a pleasurable experience for you.” Using panko adds a bold crispness that grabs you by your collar and says, “Yeah, I’m the breading. You got a problem with that?”
To make four servings:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.


Dry the surface of four fish fillets using paper towels, then brush both sides of each fillet lightly with extra virgin olive oil. Make the fish seasoning by mixing 1 tablespoon of  kosher salt, ½ teaspoon of fresh ground pepper, and 1teaspoon of garlic powder, and apply it generously to both sides of each fish filet. (Any remaining seasoning mixture can be reserved to season whatever vegetables you’re serving with the fish.)
You’re now ready to bread the fish fillets. An easy way to do this without making a mess is to put the flour, seasoned bread crumb mixture and, if you like, even the egg substitute (or beaten eggs) into large sealable plastic food storage bags.
Place three pans (or the sealable bags) on the counter. In the first, put 1 cup of all purpose flour. In the second, put two egg substitute eggs (or two regular egg, well beaten). In the third, combine the following ingredients to make the seasoned bread crumb mixture: ½ cup panko bread crumbs, ½ cup plain bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons  of  dried basil, 2 tablespoons of dried oregano, 1 tablespoon of dried parsley, 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, 1 teaspoon of dried rosemary, and the zest of 1 lemon or orange.


Working one fillet at a time, put each fillet in the flour and coat well, then in the egg, then in the seasoned bread crumbs. Be sure both sides are well coated. As you finish breading each fillet, place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment.


Once all the fillets are coated, bake them until the fish is cooked and flaky, about 10-12 minutes, turning them over half way. To serve, drizzle each fillet with a little olive oil and garnish each plate with a lemon wedge to serve. (A glass of white wine won't hurt, either!)
So there you have part 1 of our delicious Italian-style dinner. Coming up next week in part 2: a special side dish I call “Brown Rice Rizzuto.”


As always, if you’d like a cookbook style, notebook ready copy of this week’s recipe, just let me know in a comment or an e-mail and I’ll send it along.


See you next week for part 2! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to baci il cuoco. ;-)

Order in the Court: A Non-Traditional Court Bouillon for Poaching Fish and Vegetables

Greetings, faithful readers. Before we get to this week's recipe, one I hope you'll find different and interesting, there's a bit of news to share. Kissing the Cook is now linked onto Facebook! Just sign on, look up Kissingthecook Recipes (or search for the e-mail address kissthecookben@ymail.com), and, if you like, send a friend request. I promise it will be accepted. :-)


And now for our regularly scheduled recipe.


A classic (a polite word for "old"), tasty, and healthy way to prepare fish or vegetables is to poach them in a court bouillon.  Fortunately for us all, this wonderful and simple cooking method is making a comeback.


Court bouillon is quick and easy to put together. (In fact, it's a French term for “quick broth.”) There’s a modest bit of cooking time involved, but the broth doesn’t require very much attention while this is going on. And poaching itself cooks the meat or vegetables in just a few minutes which, for most of us hurried souls, adds to the method’s appeal. Court bouillon ingredients can vary from cook to cook, but all follow a basic structure of acid, water, herbs, and usually some vegetables. The acid is typically something like dry white wine or a good quality vinegar.


Being from the part of New Jersey which the locals usually refer to without the “New,” I was inspired to create my own take on all of this that I call, “Hudson County Court” Bouillon. The recipe follows. You’ll see that one of the key elements here is that the dry white wine is replaced by a good quality beer. (This is Jersey, after all.) To offset the bitterness that sometimes comes from cooking down beer, I’ve also replaced the water with vegetable stock.


And although it's not the usual way to use court bouillon, it also seemed to me that after the poaching has infused it with the essence of the cooked fish or vegetables, the remaining liquid could be turned into a very nice gravy-type sauce that would tie the whole dish together. As described below, a few additional ingredients do the job.


So all rise: Hudson County Court Bouillon is now in session. Judge for yourself. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)


To make enough to poach, and have sauce for, three or four servings of fish or vegetables, begin by combining the following in a pan:  8 ounces of beer; 1-1/2 cups vegetable stock; 1 teaspoon dried parsley; 1 medium onion, chopped, with about 2 tablespoons set aside for making the sauce later); 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon whole peppercorns, 1 bay leaf; 1 teaspoon dried thyme; 1 stalk celery, chopped; and 1 carrot, chopped. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer it uncovered for about 20 minutes. When it’s done simmering, strain the mixture (discarding the solids) and return the liquid to the pan.


Bring the liquid to a boil, add the fish or vegetables to be poached, and lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer until the fish or vegetables have finished cooking. How long this takes depends on what your’re cooking, of course, but it should generally be only a few minutes, so keep an eye on it. When the fish or vegetables have finished cooking, remove them from the liquid and set them aside while you make the sauce.


To make the sauce, add the butter substitute, flour, and the 2 tablespoons of chopped onion you set aside earlier to the liquid, adding the flour slowly and whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Add the honey, then continue to cook over low heat until the sauce is the desired thickness, continuing to whisk constantly.


You’re done! All that’s left is to top the fish or vegetables with the sauce and serve warm.


As always, for a notebook-ready cookbook-style copy of this recipe, or any other recipe from this site, just post a comment asking for it (or send me an e-mail) and I’ll get it right out to you.


See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)