I rarely go to the market with a blank slate. Some notion of the ultimate goal — dinner — informs my shopping. Nonetheless, I frequently let the market guide me; dinner is not a rigid “paint by numbers” affair, even if I plan a particular dish. It’s more like a pencil sketch, with some elements that may be erased and redrawn, the way a chef comes up with a daily special.
If you start to approach meal planning this way, thinking first about ingredients that may inspire you and gathering what’s best even if it means making changes on the spot, you’ll wind up with better quality. You will need to make a few basic decisions along the way: how to cook the ingredient, how to season it and how to serve it. Be fearless and let experience steer you. Doing so will make you a more accomplished, inspired cook.
To that end, here is how I arrived at a fish dinner for four, to serve with a lovely bottle of slightly off-dry riesling.
I planned on fillets, and when I went to the market, I hoped to find wild striped bass, sablefish or something similar, with the skin on, so I could use my dependable sear-and-roast method. I crisp the skin to a crackle in a pan, and then finish cooking the fillets in the oven. The method also works with meaty, skinless fillets like hake and mahi-mahi.
Asian seasonings would work very nicely with the wine, so I settled on an Asian vegetable ragout. Had I not decided on Asian, I might have done a mix of little potatoes, capers, baby artichokes and herbs in white wine; or a Spanish sauce with bell peppers, smoked paprika, dicings of chorizo, a whiff of saffron and a splash of sherry; or a mixture as Provençal as a Cézanne, with tomato, fennel, olives, garlic, orange zest and white wine. Most proteins will welcome all sorts of sides. It’s up to you to select what looks best in the market, or even items you have on hand. To make your life less complicated, consider selecting ingredients you already know how to cook.
Asian flavors demand ginger and garlic, bolstered by onions and celery. Those were cooked until tender. Shiitake mushrooms added meatiness. I plundered the pantry for staples like soy sauce, rice vinegar and Chinese five-spice powder, with its anise edge. Fish sauce and oyster sauce also raised their hands, but I did not call on them this time; the sauce was richly saline enough. White wine or dry sherry would be good choices to moisten the mixture, but I decided on beer instead, since its bitterness would tame the salt.
As I cooked, I seasoned little by little, tasting all the while. Do not minimize the importance of tasting, even when you are following exact measurements in a recipe. Feel free to adjust to your own palate. The same goes, to a certain extent, for texture. Time and temperature are flexible components, not rigid rules, and require monitoring.
Though Chinese stir-fries are often thickened with a slurry of cornstarch, I prefer to use miso, which I always keep on hand in the refrigerator. It’s even a wonderful addition to non-Asian dishes, like stews and pot roasts, to thicken the sauce and add nuanced depth. A slick of sesame oil enriched the sauce and burnished the fish.
A handful of bright scallions and cilantro leaves was all it took to finish it.
And, because I never want to lose a successful recipe, I wrote everything down as I went along.
Seared Fish With Asian Mushroom Ragout
Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
24 oz. fish fillets, preferably with skin, such as wild striped bass, sablefish or red snapper
Salt and ground black pepper
3 Tbsp. Asian toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, such as grapeseed, olive or peanut oil
2 large cloves garlic, slivered
1 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1 cup sliced onion
2 stalks celery, slant-cut in 1/2-inch slices
1/2 lb. shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded, caps quartered
1/2 cup cooked edamame, fresh or frozen
1/2 tsp. Chinese five-spice powder
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. rice vinegar
2/3 cup beer, preferably lager
1 Tbsp. red miso
2 Tbsp. flour
4 scallions, trimmed and slant-cut, including a couple of inches of the green
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
Cut fish in 4 equal portions, season with salt and pepper and brush with 2 tablespoons sesame oil. Set aside. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Place a wok or large skillet on medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Add garlic, ginger, onion and celery and stir-fry until vegetables soften. Add mushrooms, lower heat to medium and continue to cook about 5 minutes, until mushrooms soften. Stir in the edamame and five-spice powder. Add soy sauce, vinegar and beer and bring to a simmer. Stir in miso and let it dissolve. Remove from heat. Add salt and pepper if needed.
Place a heavy ovenproof skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat. While pan heats, dust the skin of the fish with flour. Place fish, skin side down, in pan and sear about 5 minutes, until skin browns.
Turn fish over, place in oven and roast 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets, until just cooked through. An instant-read thermometer should register about 140 degrees. Remove from oven.
Reheat mushroom ragout. Add scallions and cilantro. Spoon mixture onto a platter or four dinner plates. Top with the fish, skin side up, and serve.
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