Sister Fish

My sister, Susannah, was skilled in the kitchen long before I realized that I loved to cook. While I was traipsing around the backyard choreographing dance routines for an audience of stuffed animals, Susannah, age 10, was perfecting tomato quiche, a dish I pretended to be bored of as a matter of jealous principle. We each took our roundabout ways to get back to the kitchen and now, Susannah owns her own cafe, Bread & Circuses, in Barcelona, turning the Catalonian crowd onto the virtues of the American sandwich.

On the rare occasion that Susannah and I find ourselves in the same country and in the same kitchen, true to Taylor-family form, we spend breakfast talking about what to eat for lunch and spend lunch discussing what we'll have for dinner. Cooking together has become part stage, and part classroom for each of us, an opportunity to show off but also to see what dishes the other has come to love. Our palettes were trained on the same food for much of our lives, but our takes are different--let's just say I tend more towards "buckwheat" and she towards "butter". From time to time, each of us produces a dish that could just have easily sprung from the other's brain.

A few weeks ago Sus did just that with this incredibly simple fish dish. It combines many of my favorite flavors in a single roasting pan--lemon, olives, fennel, peppers-- and it only takes about 15 minutes to cook. For those of you who are intimidated by cooking fish, which can seem complicated, this is a great way to test the waters. This time I can't feign boredom and must give credit where credit is due. Sister fish is delicious.

Sister Fish

feeds 4

One 1.5 pound very fresh cod filet (or four small filets)

1/2 bulb of fennel

1/2 a red onion

4 cloves garlic

1 small red or orange bell pepper

1/2 a cup good green olives

1 lemon

olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Using a mandoline or a very sharp knife, carefully juilenne the fennel, peppers and onion. Place them in the bottom of a roasting pan.

Add the peeled garlic cloves and olives to the pan along with a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Toss the vegetables well until they are somewhat evenly mixed and coated, and make a thick layer in the bottom of the pan.

Again, using the mandoline or a knife, slice enough paper-thin rounds of lemon to form a single layer over the vegetables.

Place the fish filet(s) in a single layer on top of the lemons. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Salt and pepper the fish, place in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes, until the fish is just cooked through. It should flake easily away when prodded with a fork but should still be moist. The vegetables should be soft and starting to let their juices into the bottom of the pan. 

Using a metal spatula, divide the filet into four even pieces. Distribute the vegetables evenly among the four plates and top each with a piece of fish. Add a bit more salt and pepper to taste and serve with a wedge of fresh lemon.

Slow Roasted Halibut with Fennel-Lemon Oil

Dinner is my favorite meal, both to eat and to cook. I am positive this is because of how I was raised. Dinner was ceremony. Around 6:00 each night, martini in hand, Dad would start his kitchen ministrations--readying coals on the grill, boiling water, mixing sauces. Around 7pm we would get the call to set the table. Placemats, cloth napkins, fork on the left and knife on the right, dinner plates heated in the oven. Salt and pepper? Dad would call from the kitchen. Check. Candles? Check. Serving spoons? Hot plates? Check, check. From 7:30 to 8:30pm each night the four of us sat down for dinner without distraction. We were not allowed to answer the phone. There was no TV on in the background. We ate and we talked. This is where I learned how my parents met, that my mom once lived with 3 men in a basement apartment that had only a curtain separating the bathroom from the kitchen (scandal!), that my Dad wrestled an octopus in the Pacific Ocean. It was at the oval table over a favorite meal of steak, peas and couscous that my sister and I had our first sips of wine, that we admitted to a bad grade on a test or being asked to the prom. Could we go? There have been phases in my life where the formality of dinner has fallen by the wayside. But a day without the punctuation of a dinner lovingly prepared and shared sends me to bed wanting.  The plates of my childhood are what I think of as a three part plate, a plate anchored by an animal protein and rounded out by a "starch" and a vegetable. These days my dinner plates don't always take that form and animal protein is not always the focal point. But this past Sunday night, craving comfort food, I found myself planning a three part plate in my head. Pete requested fish--a food absent from his diet in Argentina this past month--and, though I did not have a martini in hand, around 6pm, I started the happy task of boiling water, salting a halibut filet, zesting lemons and washing salad greens. This time, Pete set the table.

Slow Roasted Halibut with Fennel-Lemon Oil

 (barely) adapted from the improvisational cook

Serves 2

One pound filet of halibut, skin on

3 T olive oil plus extra for brushing

1 t fennel seeds

1 two inch piece of lemon zest

salt and pepper

lemon wedge to garnish

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Brush a baking dish with olive oil and place the fish, skin side down in the dish. Brush the top of the filet with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, toast the fennel seeds until fragrant. Add the olive oil and warm about 3 minutes. Remove from heat, add the lemon zest and let it all steep.

Cook the fish for 25-30 minutes* until a fork goes through the fattest part of the filet without resistance and the flesh of the fish separates easily from the skin. *Schneider recommends 5 minutes of cooking for each 1/4 inch of thickness of the filet.

Cut the filet in half, lengthwise, and plate. Using a teaspoon, drizzle the infused olive oil and fennel seeds over the top of each filet. Garnish with lemon wedges. 

We ate this with salad from the garden and rice spiked with blood orange and smoked paprika. I also threw some sliced fennel I had in the fridge and a sliced onion into a baking dish with a little butter and let them slow roast at the same time as the fish.