Mustard Roasted Fish
- By Katie Roche
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- 17 May, 2019
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"Mustard roasted fish"...what kind of fish? Ina generically calls for "fish fillets" and then follows it up very specifically by saying "such as red snapper". With the absence of an explanation of what other fish could be used, I went in search of red snapper. I do feel like that was misleading to call for "fish" in the general sense, and then not actually provide options for what types of fish would work well in the recipe. Nevertheless, I stopped at Lowe's Foods after my workout to try to hunt down some red snapper. I often start there on Item Quests simply because it's on my way home from the gym, and have searched for enough things there that the seafood guy recognizes me and calls me "love". They never actually HAVE what I'm looking for which has led me to the conclusion that Lowe's desperately WANTS to bougie but really doesn't know how. (This is, as I've mentioned before, the grocery store at which I went to get a cup of coffee and asked what kind of beans were in a blend and the employee answered, "Coffee beans". …Ok.) I was tempted to search substitutes for red snapper and use something else that I COULD get at Lowe's but I ran into my friend and regular-blog-taste-tester Cam, who said he had heard that red snapper was delicious. With renewed purpose, I left Lowe's and went to my car to sweat to death and call around to some other stores.
It took me three separate phone calls to Whole Foods to actually reach the seafood department. If you're wondering why I didn't just go there, I feel like everybody who relates to me in any way should realize that Whole Foods is an EXPERIENCE and it takes a lot to, like...handle that. It's just a lot. And so you don't just go. You make sure they have what it is you're looking for before you wade through the crowds of patchouli-scented people buying asparagus water and nitrite-free bacon for their Whole Life. (I did Whole30 once, but did you know people do it for real? Like as a way of life? I would never. I truly only did it so that when people flexed on me about it, I could honestly say I did it and it did not cure all that ails me. I'm not lying either - it really didn't.) So Heather at Whole Foods heard me ask about the availability of red snapper and for some reason transferred me to the produce department, who promptly transferred me to Seafood, who did not answer the phone. I called back and Heather tried again, and I got to spend an inordinate amount of time listening to Whole Foods's hold music which for some reason sounds like a Britney Spears song from the early 2000s. I finally got to speak with the seafood counter, who said they had what I needed, so I went there and payed a ridiculous amount of money for one pound of fish. While there, I also picked up crème fraiche and some shallots. Ready to go.
It took me three separate phone calls to Whole Foods to actually reach the seafood department. If you're wondering why I didn't just go there, I feel like everybody who relates to me in any way should realize that Whole Foods is an EXPERIENCE and it takes a lot to, like...handle that. It's just a lot. And so you don't just go. You make sure they have what it is you're looking for before you wade through the crowds of patchouli-scented people buying asparagus water and nitrite-free bacon for their Whole Life. (I did Whole30 once, but did you know people do it for real? Like as a way of life? I would never. I truly only did it so that when people flexed on me about it, I could honestly say I did it and it did not cure all that ails me. I'm not lying either - it really didn't.) So Heather at Whole Foods heard me ask about the availability of red snapper and for some reason transferred me to the produce department, who promptly transferred me to Seafood, who did not answer the phone. I called back and Heather tried again, and I got to spend an inordinate amount of time listening to Whole Foods's hold music which for some reason sounds like a Britney Spears song from the early 2000s. I finally got to speak with the seafood counter, who said they had what I needed, so I went there and payed a ridiculous amount of money for one pound of fish. While there, I also picked up crème fraiche and some shallots. Ready to go.
I told Dan how much this fish costs per pound and he was like, "GET WRECKED, BUDGET". In case anyone wants to see what the outside of this thing looks like, here is that view:
From what I can tell from like two minutes of internet reading, this red snapper MAY have been caught in shallower waters, because apparently there is a correlation between redness of skin and water depth. The photo for the species on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site is really something. It honestly kinda looks like a cartoon fish.
So the entirety of prep work for this recipe is stirring these ingredients together: here we have Dijon, shallots, crème fraiche, and capers or, as Dan has been calling them since he watched Pitch Perfect 3, "those salty peas". Once again, I read the Kitchn article about the difference between sour cream and crème fraiche and crème fraiche is essentially just extra fatty, extra expensive sour cream. Allegedly it has a "richer flavor" but...what does that even mean? Anyway, the whole time I was stirring this I was just thinking about how I don't believe in dairy and fish hanging out together. I have since found out (more internet reading) that there is some kind of wives' tale about fish and dairy not digesting well together or being bad for you. I also realized that I may have been somewhat influenced by the Italian notion that cheese and seafood together is a sin. (This isn't cheese, obviously, but I feel like you can kind of broaden that to dairy.) When I think about it, I've really never had seafood prepared with any type of milk product. (Obviously, other than the Miracle Food, butter, and the few times I've had lobster mac and cheese in Connecticut.) Anyway, suffice it to say I was deeply skeptical about putting a creamy sauce on top of fish.
And yet...here we are. A filet of fish absolutely covered in creamy sauce. It felt really wrong to do this. It really did. This had 15 minutes to roast in the oven, during which time I had nothing else I needed to do so Dan showed me this interesting YouTube video where people try to sort people just by looking at them and asking a few basic questions and decide whether they're Democrats or Republicans. The assumptions were absolutely WILD but of course, not surprising.
Does this not look extremely appetizing? Don't answer that.
I have so many thoughts. First of all, if you're going to pay out the butt for an expensive white, flaky fish, it should be halibut. It just should. I want everything I eat to be halibut instead of whatever it actually is, but I ESPECIALLY wanted that when I ate this. Second, you just can't cover expensive fish in expensive sour cream and call it "chic". Not a joke, Ina's caption for this recipe literally ends with her asking "how chic is that?" I mean listen. The internet defines "chic" as "elegantly and stylishly fashionable". You know where it's fashionable to cover things in creamy sauces? Church potlucks. I feel like this was a church potluck dish from my nightmares...you know the ones I mean: the ones that aren't really recognizable and you also don't recognize whose dish it's in. It can't just be me who memorized which serving ware belonged to which people and only ate what I knew came from the Chosen Few. (Until I was about 12 years old, the only Chosen Few was my own parents. Love you mom.) Third, it's not just that I object on principle; this was actually just not that good. It was definitely SALTY, and the salty peas made it even saltier.
I just don't understand how and why this ended up in a cookbook. A ten year old in the Midwest could have come up with this, and probably has. And really shouldn't have. When you get all the stuff mixed together on top, it honestly kind of tastes like mayonnaise and while I definitely support mayonnaise as a concept, a dish that is literally just fish + mayonnaise is a hard no from me. Dan's thoughts are that the fish was like, too juicy somehow, and that it combined awkwardly with the creamy sauce. I definitely second that. Basically, this is what's up: if you're going to spend a bunch of money on fish, red snapper is underwhelming and you should buy halibut. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but in case we're not all on the same page - covering things in creamy sauces is not CHIC. Just because someone in France did it (her friend Myriam apparently) does not make it CHIC. Everything France does isn't automatically elegant, okay? Anyway, let's discontinue the usage of the word "chic" forever. It's awful and Ina used it to lie to us. How awful is that??? (It was pretty awful.)
I just don't understand how and why this ended up in a cookbook. A ten year old in the Midwest could have come up with this, and probably has. And really shouldn't have. When you get all the stuff mixed together on top, it honestly kind of tastes like mayonnaise and while I definitely support mayonnaise as a concept, a dish that is literally just fish + mayonnaise is a hard no from me. Dan's thoughts are that the fish was like, too juicy somehow, and that it combined awkwardly with the creamy sauce. I definitely second that. Basically, this is what's up: if you're going to spend a bunch of money on fish, red snapper is underwhelming and you should buy halibut. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but in case we're not all on the same page - covering things in creamy sauces is not CHIC. Just because someone in France did it (her friend Myriam apparently) does not make it CHIC. Everything France does isn't automatically elegant, okay? Anyway, let's discontinue the usage of the word "chic" forever. It's awful and Ina used it to lie to us. How awful is that??? (It was pretty awful.)
For this post, I wanted to combine two summertime flavors into the crisp recipe one of my oldest Alaskan friends passed on to me years ago. Rhubarb, if you're unfamiliar, is a reddish stalk that kind of resembles really big celery. It's very tart and is most commonly paired with strawberry. I've rarely seen it star in its own show dessert-wise, but my friend Kylee has been making rhubarb crisp for years and it's the best crisp I know of. Blueberries are usually in season in late summer; I have not been home for a blueberry season since Dan's last deployment in 2018 so in order to make this recipe I actually used blueberries from a friend's parents' farm in upstate SC! They're a little sweeter than the blueberries I'd have picked at home, but they worked well. I'm going to pretend like I was actually picking blueberries at home in Alaska for the purpose of showing you what that would look like.
I was getting all ready to write this post, going through my process with photos starting in my kitchen when I realized that a lot of my friends probably don't know what fireweed is or where it comes from and this recipe actually starts far, far away from my kitchen. This will be the first of a few posts highlighting iconic Alaskan ingredients. I've wanted to do this for a while because my home inspires me in so many ways, writing and cooking particular among them. Fireweed is a wildflower that is rather ubiquitous in southcentral Alaska and is often considered a gauge for how long summer will last. It is said that when the blooms reach the top of the plant, winter is six weeks away. Whether or not that's accurate, fireweed is found all over in late summer in Alaska. Here is some I spotted in mid-July by Eklutna Lake:
If you know Dan and me very well, you probably know by now that if our life were a sitcom, he'd low-key be the funniest character. Because that is true, I thought I'd include his bottom ten with accompanying remarks before giving the actual bottom ten. His are hilarious, but aren't as legitimate as mine because he actually tried way fewer of these than one might think. I realized as he was flipping through the book that my old coworker Cam probably ate more of these foods than anyone else did. The overarching theme of Dan's song of Ina Garten hatred is not the actual taste of the finished product but more how asinine he finds that particular recipe to be. So here you are, Dan's bottom ten.
#1: Butternut Squash Soup
#1: Butternut Squash Soup
You guys asked for my top ten from the blog, so here we go! And I'm thinking that what you *really* want is actually the bottom ten, so I'll go ahead and give you those next week. That post will probably be A LOT funnier. While preparing to write this post, I had Dan flip through the cookbook to give me HIS top ten and he was all disgruntled as he did so and only came up with eight that he even liked at all. "I'm not a picky eater!" he insists. Yeah ok. Although to be fair, I've seen some cookbooks I would only make, like, one thing out of and plenty I'd make nothing out of, though sometimes that's because I find the chef so annoying. @ the Pioneer Woman. I just don't trust someone who puts sour cream in spaghetti and then bakes it. Plus all her recipe intros are about, like, Ladd or Tadd or whatever the heck her husband's name is "coming in from the fields starving for dinner". If I came in from working in a field and you tried to give me sour cream spaghetti, I'd be like, "How about a hot pocket instead? Thx." Anyway, this is not Dan's blog so these are not his top ten. You can ask him which ones he liked, but you'll end up in a long convo about how much he hates Ina Garten. Anyway, these are not ranked or anything, they're just in order from the cookbook.
So with that, #1: Juice of a Few Flowers
So with that, #1: Juice of a Few Flowers
It was Sunday afternoon and I thought to myself, "What a perfect time to make jam!" I mean, how positively quaint: just sitting in my home in suburbia, finished with weekend chores, relaxing with some knitting...why not? Why not make some jam? I mean, obviously my afternoon-kitchen-activity was directed toward jam-making because it was next up in the book BUT whatever, I was kind of excited! Also, this is the last recipe in this book!!! I'm still in the process of deciding what I'll do now, so if there's something you'd like me to make and tell you about in my own fashion - you know, with lots of tangents and jokes - please do let me know! I'll likely continue to tackle Ina content, but may start including some recipe faves and/or foods people text me about a lot! I get a lot of cake questions, a LOT of frosting questions (because meringue buttercream is bae and I've got everyone in my social circles who eats my food on board), and a lot of fish questions. So look for more food to come, even though this is the last recipe in Back to Basics.
We went to Publix to ItemQuest for this and Dan said, "Don't we already have strawberries???" And I had to confess that I had eaten them all because it's honestly amazing how good fruit can be when it's 1) in season, 2) somewhat local, and 3) not ludicrously expensive. I'm about to travel home to Alaska for about a month, and it's going to put a real damper on my current fruit-snacking habits when I go into Fred Meyer for some strawbs and they're like, $7/lb and already trying to be moldy. Also needed blueberries (partly for the jam, mostly for the snax), one Granny Smith apple, and more superfine sugar. Publix had all of these things, plus about a million old people 'cause Sunday + Publix = Old People City.
We went to Publix to ItemQuest for this and Dan said, "Don't we already have strawberries???" And I had to confess that I had eaten them all because it's honestly amazing how good fruit can be when it's 1) in season, 2) somewhat local, and 3) not ludicrously expensive. I'm about to travel home to Alaska for about a month, and it's going to put a real damper on my current fruit-snacking habits when I go into Fred Meyer for some strawbs and they're like, $7/lb and already trying to be moldy. Also needed blueberries (partly for the jam, mostly for the snax), one Granny Smith apple, and more superfine sugar. Publix had all of these things, plus about a million old people 'cause Sunday + Publix = Old People City.
I was glad Ina gave me something easy for this week, because I was packing for Alaska and just *did not have the time* to mess with hunting lobsters or weird cheeses from the internet or whatever. ItemQuest was fairly straightforward, just took Dan a trip to the liquor store next to the Publix for some limoncello. I grabbed this particular lemon curd in the British aisle of Publix; I think last time an Ina recipe called for lemon curd I bought it from Trader Joe's and it was DISGUSTING. I mean, truly awful. I would like to recommend making your own lemon curd if you have the time and the inclination. Ina's lemon curd recipe is phenomenal and it is one thing for which I can say she is truly correct: homemade is BETTER and store-bought is not at all as good. The most beloved cupcakes I have ever made were filled with Ina's lemon curd, and had the lemon curd mixed into the meringue buttercream frosting. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!! Anyway, the rest of this was fruit that I had on hand, mint, and Greek yogurt which we did have to buy because I don't, as a rule, eat Greek yogurt of my own free will. It's chalky and disgusting.
Dates are something I honestly never even thought about until I did Whole 30. I have mentioned my Whole 30 experience several times over the course of this journey through Back to Basics, but if you're new to reading the blog, this is what happened: I did Whole 30 one time, just to prove that I could, because salvation-by-diet apologists were obsessed with it as the newest fad in righteous eating practices. It was a terrible experience; on top of hating every minute of it for myself and finding exactly zero wellness benefits, I also hated it for Dan who was not allowed to eat popcorn for 30 days. Dan is in love with popcorn; his addiction to it is almost at the level of my addiction to coffee. He gets rage-y without it. But anyway, Whole 30 recipes are big into dates as sweeteners and some of the things you can eat, like Lara Bars, are made with dates. Dates are impossibly chewy. I ate more of them in that 30 days than I ever wanted to, and now when I see them in recipes I can't help but think of that Whole 30. Fortunately for me, I got to begin this recipe by chopping TWO CUPS' worth of dates. Oh, they also kind of look like cockroach bodies, so there's that. The only thing I actually had to get at the store for this was oranges! I had everything else on hand, even Cointreau, thanks to many previous Ina recipes.
Alright so, I'm not the Muffin Man. I don't really make a whole lot of muffins, for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being that on the rankings of breakfast foods they definitely do not crack the top five, maybe not even the top ten. If I have an option for a bagel or a waffle, I'll pick one of them over a muffin every single time. I also prefer cereal, cinnamon rolls, or *cue eye roll* avocado toast. I've just never risen from my slumber and been like, "You know what would really hit the spot right now? A MUFFIN." But!!! In recent months, since my friend Logan came into my life, I've been making muffins a lot more frequently because he really loves them. So the last blueberry muffins I made were from a 99cent Betty Crocker mix packet which he brought into my house and asked me sweetly to make, because they're what he grew up with and along with many preservatives, they are full of nostalgia for him. Here is Logan and me, preparing to mix the muffin batter. Out of respect (and to make up for the disrespect of rolling up with muffin mix), he wore one of my aprons. I will treasure this picture forever.
You guys...Ina has "a thing" about commercial granola bars. Her beef with them, apparently, is that they say they contain real fruit and nuts but that all she sees when she looks at the labels are like, ten different kinds of corn syrup. I'm going to go ahead and guess, just based on this, that none of the lunches her mom packed for her growing up contained any Fruit By the Foot. And surely if we introduced her to Gushers, she would die. This is a real shame. I also feel like this disdain for corn syrup is maybe just a tad self-righteous, coming from the woman whose frosting recipe calls for literally six entire sticks of butter. At that point, what's a little corn syrup to you really? People's nutritional hills-to-die-on really fascinate me (and also kind of annoy me sometimes) and the ones about sugar might get me the most. I feel like, at some point, sugar is sugar and whether you're baking with honey, white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, etc you're still probably making something that's not amazing for you so, in terms of sugar, why not just be in for a penny in for a pound, amirite? So while I'm on this topic, before I even get to the actual point (please, I know you're here for the tangents), I would like to just let anyone and everyone know that I'm absolutely not interested in your "healthy substitutes" for things that taste good in their original form. I do not WANT a chocolate chip pancake made out of bananas and grains you harvested in your field this morning. If I want a banana I will eat one, and if I want a chocolate chip pancake I will eat one, and that's that. And DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT come @ me with "cashew cheese". Just don't. I don't even think I should honor that concept with an explanation of why it's so wrong. If that's not self-evident, I can't help you.
So down to the granola bar ingredients. I rolled up to Kroger only to find that their already meager bulk bins had been EMPTIED because if you scoop dates into a bag and then someone else scoops dates into a bag, you might get the coronavirus. I'm glad they've taken the precaution of removing this shopping option, since I cannot resisting licking my hands after every grocery trip I make. Thankfully, they still had the lil tower of small containers of some of the weirder items right there in the organic section, which was where I was able to find dates. The rest of this stuff was on the baking aisle, with the exception of wheat germ which was, for some reason, with the cereal. I'm still kind of unclear on what wheat germ is actually used for by people, and the context of it being located on the cereal aisle makes me wonder even more. Do people eat it like grape nuts? Sprinkle it on stuff like how people like to do with nutritional yeast right now? ("It tastes just like cheese!" You know what else tastes like cheese? Actual cheese. You're welcome.) Anyway, I was very grateful that Kroger at least had everything I needed and I didn't have to go on a for real ItemQuest.
So down to the granola bar ingredients. I rolled up to Kroger only to find that their already meager bulk bins had been EMPTIED because if you scoop dates into a bag and then someone else scoops dates into a bag, you might get the coronavirus. I'm glad they've taken the precaution of removing this shopping option, since I cannot resisting licking my hands after every grocery trip I make. Thankfully, they still had the lil tower of small containers of some of the weirder items right there in the organic section, which was where I was able to find dates. The rest of this stuff was on the baking aisle, with the exception of wheat germ which was, for some reason, with the cereal. I'm still kind of unclear on what wheat germ is actually used for by people, and the context of it being located on the cereal aisle makes me wonder even more. Do people eat it like grape nuts? Sprinkle it on stuff like how people like to do with nutritional yeast right now? ("It tastes just like cheese!" You know what else tastes like cheese? Actual cheese. You're welcome.) Anyway, I was very grateful that Kroger at least had everything I needed and I didn't have to go on a for real ItemQuest.
At first I saw the pictures of this and thought, "YAY!!! Cinnamon rolls!" And then a couple of weeks ago, I actually tried making cinnamon rolls for the first time and realized that my inability to roll/shape/slice yeast doughs is still a thing. AND THEN I read this entire recipe and realized these get filled with raisins. So here we go!
ItemQuest was only dramatic because the stores just DID NOT have puff pastry sheets; I was only finding it in "shells". I tried Bi-Lo and Dan tried Food Lion before he finally located sheets at Publix. The rest of the ingredients, I already had on hand!
ItemQuest was only dramatic because the stores just DID NOT have puff pastry sheets; I was only finding it in "shells". I tried Bi-Lo and Dan tried Food Lion before he finally located sheets at Publix. The rest of the ingredients, I already had on hand!