Monday, January 8, 2007

Last Night's Dinner

One of my New Year's resolutions, in so far as I have them, is to eat more fish. Edan isn't wild about cooked fish (sushi is another thing entirely), so it's easy for us to fall into a salmon-only rut. Last night, however, we decided to try this Mahi Mahi recipe we found in Bon Appetit magazine. I thought Mahi Mahi would be readily available in most supermarkets. I was wrong. After scouring the pathetic fish sections of my local Albertsons and Vons (Vons looked like I imagine a supermarket would on the eve of the apocalypse. There were almost no products on the shelves and the fish display was full of torn up salmon fillets and overturned packages of frozen swordfish), I realized I had to suck it up and go to Gelsons. This is a common occurrence in my cooking life -- I decide to make a slightly exotic dish, insist on shopping at the "normal" supermarket (since I figure good food should be available to everyone), wander around for half an hour before I realize they have less than half the ingredients I need, yell at the produce manager, and leave in a huff to drive to Gelsons or Whole Foods. Every week...I'm a slow learner.

Despite my supermarket troubles, the meal ended up being excellent. I couldn't find jicama anywhere, so we went with a typical green salad with tomatoes and cucumbers instead. It broke up the Asian theme we had going, and it didn't look quite as nice on the plate, but it was still tasty. By far, the highlight of the meal were the rice fritters. When we were forming them by hand, they kept breaking apart and refusing to hold their shape, yet somehow they cohered enough in the frying pan to crisp up into tiny patties of deliciousness. It was miraculous. I think we'll probably make this recipe again, if only for the fritters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've avoided fish all my life, especially those of the gefilte persuasion, but have recently come to appreciate a few. Grey sole, escarole, and, gasp, the expensive Chilean Sea Bass all might help with your resolution.