Fish - Week 2: Arctic char cooked in a parchment paper bag!

Hi, blog! Long time no see! Sorry about my absence, I got distracted by school, travelling, and running errands here and there. But really, put all my excuses aside,  I have just been procrastinating. It's been decided, the resolution of November is to catch up with my blog posts! 

In the second week of the Fish class, we learned how to cook round fish. We steamed a pickerel and cooked arctic char in a parchment paper bag. Personally, I don't really like steamed fish. Steaming fish is a very Asian way to prepare fish, usually a whole fish is used. I find that it's hard to get flavours into the fish by just steaming it. As a result, the fish sometimes has a strong "fishy" taste. On the other hand, the Italian dish "fish en papillote", a.k.a., fish cooked in a parchment paper bag, is one of my favourite cooking techniques. It's a light, healthy dish that only requires a small amount a butter, and short cooking time. Since you can add vegetables of your choice to the same parchment bag, it's really a "one-pot" reaction that you get your main and side dishes at the same time. 

Arctic char en Papillote

Ingredients

4 pieces of Arctic char fillets

4 green onions, chopped

2 shallots, brunoise (very small dice)

half fennel, julienned

half carrot, julienned

half celery stalk, julienned

half leek, julienned

3 sprigs of parsley

125 mL dry white wine

25 mL lemon juice

salt/pepper

butter

Methods

1. pre-heat the oven to 400F

2. take a piece of parchment paper, brush the paper with some butter and vegetable oil

3. season the fish with salt and pepper on both sides, put the fish on one side of the paper

4. put chopped vegetables on top of the fish

5. add a splash of white wine to the fish/vegetables

6. use the other side of the parchment paper to wrap everything inside 

7. bake at 400F for 20min

Fish - Week 1: Pan Seared Tilapia with Olive Butter Sauce

All good things must come to an end. In mid July, I finished my BBQ class, which was one of my favourite classes so far. Without my major food supply from that class, all of sudden I had to plan out what to cook for dinner and what to pack for lunch. Then I started to look through GBC calendar, and decided to take another course to feed me for another 6 weeks in the summer. Since I have always loved seafood, I picked the course - Fish. Sometimes I find that seafood can be hard to cook. Once you over cook them, there's no turning back. The texture would become really chewy and unpleasant. So I was really eager to find out the tricks to make perfect seafood dishes! 

In the first week's class, we filleted a tilapia and prepared Pan Fried Tilapia with Olive Butter and Fennel/Potato Gratin. Tilapia is a type of round fish. Personally, I wouldn't recommend buying the whole fish, because the yield after filleting the fish is quite small. Usually you can find tilapia fillets in the stores at a very affordable price. 

Pan Friend Tilapia

Ingredients

1 tilapia, filleted, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper

some black olives, chopped

butter

Methods

1. clean the fish, fillet the meat

2. lightly season the fish with salt and pepper, then dip into flour (make sure you shake off excess flour before frying the fish)

3. take a pan, heat some oil to very high temperature, brown the floured fish both sides quickly (the presentation side down first) 

4. at the same time make the olive sauce. In a pot, melt some butter, stir fry some chopped olives, squeeze in half lemon juice, reduce the volume for a bit.                                                    5. transfer the fish to a baking sheet, pour the olive butter sauce on top of the fish. Bake at 450F for 10min, 

Fennel/Potato Gratin

Ingredients

1 kg Yukon gold potatoes

1/2 fennel bulb

1 onion slicded

2 cups of heavy cream

2 tbsp butter

parmesan cheese

Methods

1. in a pot, melt some butter, sweat the onion and fennel

2. add heavy cream to the pot, bring the liquid to a simmer for 10min, adjust salt/pepper

3. put sliced, uncooked potatoes to the liquid

4. transfer everything to a baking tray, layer the potato slices with parmesan cheese in between

5. put grated parmesan cheese on the top
6. bake with a lid on at 400F for 1.5-2hr, then with a lid off for another 10min at 450F to get a nice brown colour

BBQ Cooking - Week 3: Fish on the grill!

In this week's class, we tried two ways to cook fish on the BBQ. We grilled Whole Striped Bass Stuffed with Lemon/Thyme/Ginger, and Miso Honey Glazed Atlantic Salmon. For the sides, we made Grilled Acorn Squash which I really liked, as well as Candied Sweet Potatoes that I didn't try due to my severe allergy. 

Whole Striped Bass Stuffed with Lemon/Thyme/Ginger

Ingredients

1 whole striped bass

a large piece of ginger, chopped

1/2 bunch thyme

1 lemon, sliced

olive oil, salt/pepper to taste

Methods

1. Clean the fish, cut off the fins 

2. Rub the inside of the fish with olive oil, salt and pepper

3. Stuff the cavity with ginger, thyme, and lemon slices

4. Use a skewer to go through the fish and secure the stuffing 

5. Make a few cuts on the fish, to expose more surface area, grill on the BBQ

* Each side takes about ~10min to cook, but it depends on the heat of your BBQ. To check if the fish is done, poke it with a toothpick/skewer, if the stick comes in without any resistance and comes out clear (no meat attached), the fish is ready. 

Miso Honey Glazed Atlantic Salmon

Ingredients

4 6oz salmon fillets

* We had to fillet the whole salmons ourselves. Maybe when I get some free time, I will do a sketch on how to fillet round fish. For now, just look at the whole fish photo below, and picture nicely cleaned fillet portions. 

Glaze

20g miso paste

40 mL rice wine mirin

20 mL honey

salt/white pepper to taste

Methods

1. Mix the ingredients in the glaze in a bowl, whisk everything to a homogeneous mixture

2. Marinade the fillets in the glaze mixture for a couple hours, or you can leave it overnight. Save some uncontaminated glaze for basting later.

3. Grill the fillets on the BBQ, at 45 degrees angle to the grill bars for 3min, then move them 90 degrees (perpendicular to the initial position) for another 3min. This is how you get good looking crossed grill marks on the fish. Baste the fillets with the saved glaze from time to time. 

4. Turn the fish to the other side, grill the same way for about 6min.

Grilled Acorn Squash

This is a very tasty and easy side dish to make. Basically, you just cut some squash slices. Then take a bowl to melt some butter, stir in brown sugar, ground cinnamon, and salt/pepper to taste. Pour the butter sauce over the squash wedges, coat them well, and grill them on the BBQ! It takes ~10-15min to cook them until they become soft.