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Yesterday, I mentioned poached fish as one of the things that you can eat today and feel great tomorrow. You can check out the full list here.
You don’t hear much about poaching fish. In fact, when you hear about poaching most people probably think about eggs and brunch, but poaching is one of my favorite ways to cook fish. It keeps it light, only takes a few minutes, and you end up with this:
Seriously healthy even with the butter.
The idea behind poaching is very simple. Take a large skillet and add a few cups of water and/or wine and various flavorful additions. Then you bring that liquid to a slight simmer and put in whatever kind of fish you are poaching.
But let’s start with those flavorful additions. Add these things to your largest skillet:
- 2 halved shallots
- 2 halved garlic cloves
- 30 to 40 whole peppercorns
- 6 to 8 sprigs of parsley
- 1 bay leaf
These ingredients are pretty flexible. If you don’t have shallots, you can use 1/4 cup of any onion. If you don’t have parsley, you can use cilantro or just leave it out although it does lend good flavor. The peppercorns and garlic are pretty essential.
These make water yummy.
Then add the juice from a whole lemon. After you juice it throw in the lemon itself, cut up. If you have some white wine around, add 1/2 cup of it and then fill the skillet with water until it is about 1.5-2 inches deep. You want the liquid to just cover your fish ultimately.
I didn’t have any white wine around so I left it out. My dish was still excellent.
Adding some lemon and water.
Put your skillet on medium heat and bring the liquid to a boil.
This would rip a fish apart.
Now that it is boiling turn your burner down to low. You want the water to barely be bubbling at all. If you put your fish it while it is boiling the bubbles will tear your fish apart and you will end up with some sort of weird fish mush soup. Not good food.
These were only like 7 bucks.
I used two fillets of sole for this meal because they are very light and take up flavor easily. They are also pretty economical.
Looks bland. Tastes awesome.
These do not take a long time to cook. I put my fish in for about 4 minutes and then carefully turned them to make sure they were even on both sides. A few minutes on the other side and you are done.
While they are cooking, if you want, put together three tablespoons of butter, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of capers. Microwave that on low for a 2 minutes or until the butter is melted and you have a simple caper butter sauce.
Capers are so freakin good
Using a spatula, transfer your fish straight to your plate. Don’t worry about any extra liquid. It is just a little flavor – it won’t kill you. One thing to check for though is that you don’t have any lingering peppercorns stuck to the fish. Turns out that capers and peppercorns look quite similar and it can be a bit shocking to bite into a corn. Trust me. I know.
Um. Yum.
I would recommend serving the fish with a light carb. I chose couscous, but rice would also be cool. Steamed carrots rounded out my dinner.
Um mmm. I’ve ordered capers for my last meal. I once saw them growing, the plant cascading down a rock wall, in Fiesole above Florence, where I spent a week at Giuliano Bugliali’s cooking school.