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. ;-)

Shrimp Stuffed Fish Fillets

Sometimes recipe ideas come from the strangest places.


The idea for Shrimp Stuffed Fish Fillets was actually a collision between two thoughts:  I’d been thinking about court bouillon (literally, “quick broth” for those who parlez-vous), the wonderful and classic  liquid used for braising fish, and also thinking about braciole, a delicious Italian dish made by stuffing and rolling a thin piece of beef or pork with, well, pretty much anything you want to stuff it with. Since my favorite recipe projects usually involve doing something twisted with a dish that would otherwise be considered normal, I saw an opportunity to combine the two ideas by doing a stuffed, rolled thin fish fillet, braised in court bouillon, and topped with a drizzle of sage-infused olive oil. For sides, I selected a tomato casserole my wife taught me, and some admittedly nondescript rice cooked in vegetable broth.


The recipe as described below serves four.


If you decide to make the tomato casserole as a side dish, you’ll want to get that going first so you can prepare the fish and filling while the casserole is baking:


Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.


Melt ¼ cup of butter substitute in a saucepan over medium heat. Put in 1 small chopped onion and cook until tender, the remove from the heat and stir in 1-1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs (fresh works especially well for this); 1 teaspoon of kosher salt; ½ teaspoon dried basil; and ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.


Cut 2 pints of cherry tomatoes in half, and line the bottom of a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish with ¼ of the tomatoes. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sugar on top of the tomatoes, then 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan, then ¼ of the bread crumb mixture. Repeat the tomatoes-sugar-parmesan- bread crumb mixture process three more times until everything has been used.


Cover the casserole and back for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. To brown the top layer of bread crumbs slightly, uncover the casserole and bake for another five minutes.


To make the fish, we first prepare the court bouillon. Court bouillon is technically defined as an acidulated vegetable broth, but that’s much too complicated a way to think of something that really is very simple. How simple? Check this out:


Combine your ingredients in any pot large enough to hold them: 4 cups of water; 1 cup of dry white wine (I used Chardonnay); the juice of ½ lemon; 1 medium onion, chopped;  ½ stalk of celery, chopped; 1 crushed garlic clove; 6 whole peppercorns; ¼ teaspoon fresh thyme; 1 bay leaf; ½ carrot, chopped; 1 teaspoon of kosher salt; 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley; and 2 tablespoons of fresh sage. (The solids will be strained out after the broth is made, so you don’t have to make the chopped vegetables very beautiful, and can even leave the papery outside on the crushed garlic for extra flavor.) Bring it to a boil, lower the heat a bit to a simmer. After simmering for 30 minutes, strain out the solids and pour the liquid into a pan deep enough to hold whatever fish you’re planning to braise.


While it’s simmering, you can prepare the filling. (This part is even easier than the court bouillon!)


Put your filling ingredients together in a large bowl: 1 pound of finely chopped raw shrimp (cleaned and shelled, of course); 2/3 cup chopped fresh basil; ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley; 4 sprigs fresh thyme; 2 shallots, finely chopped; ½ cup plain bread crumbs; 2 chopped garlic cloves; 1 egg-substitute egg; 1 tablespoon olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt; and ¼ teaspoon fresh-ground pepper. Mix till combined, then cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to fill your fillets.


Since that doesn’t take long to do, you’ll probably also have time to make your sage-oil:


Finely chop 2 tablespoons of fresh sage in a mini-processor. Add ¼ cup of olive oil, and process a few more moments till the oil and sage are combined.


And now for our fish. I used flounder fillets, but any fish fillets you like should be fine.


Brush both sides of your fillets lightly with olive oil, then season with kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper. Spread some shrimp filling on top of each fillet, roll them up, and secure each with one or two toothpicks. (You’ll have extra filling when you’re done stuffing the fish. Not to worry; cook it in a pan for a few minutes until the shrimp pieces are cooked through, and spoon some onto your plate as a bed for the stuffed fillets when you’re ready to serve.)


Bring the court bouillon back to a boil, reduce the heat to simmer, and carefully place the stuffed fish into the hot braising liquid. Simmer till the fish flakes and the shrimp is cooked. (This should generally take 6 – 10 minutes depending on your fish fillet, but check it while it’s cooking.)


To serve the stuffed fish, put some of the cooked extra stuffing on the plate, place a stuffed fish fillet on top of that, and finish it by drizzling some of the sage-olive oil. Add your sides, and you’ve not only got yourself a delicious fish dinner, but also a great method for braising other fish dishes too.


That’s it for this week. Please visit again next week for another fun, easy, reduced fat recipe!


If you prefer a cookbook-style, notebook-ready copy of these or any other recipes you see here on Kissing the Cook, just say the word!


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