Fishing for inspiration

During my food-inspiration drought, reader NL sent me his delicious-sounding recipe for fish:

cod, diced ginger, garlic, a few bags of green tea, brown sugar, soy sauce and japanese doenjang (ha, instead of 'korean miso') poached in enough water to cover the fish. ate it w green beans in chicken broth and black bean paste and some brown rice.

I find preparing fish to be, quite frankly, daunting. I've tried it before, having the most success with pan-grilling salmon which seems to hold together pretty well, but fish just wasn't something I had in my day-to-day cooking repertoire. For one thing, it's expensive and it goes bad fast. But I really needed to try something different, to break out of my cooking funk.



Attempt #1: I bought some cod and baked it on top of some celery in some parchment (in my toaster oven!), drizzled with a soy-lime-sugar dressing. I ate this with some veggies sauteed with some of the same soy dressing. It was okay. Baking in parchment was pretty easy but not that exciting (perhaps I will try to follow a recipe next time, with a better combination of flavors). I also underestimated the size of the fish which, when finished, was dwarfed by the pile of veggies. That was okay though, since the veggies were pretty good.


Attempt #2: I had frozen the remaining cod I'd purchased with no ideas on what to do with it until I visited the farmer's market and thought: fish tacos! While defrosting the fish, I prepared a radish salsa. Thinly sliced radish, lime, salt, cilantro, halved grape tomatoes and minced pickled jalapenos (I like jalapenos that come in a jar, so sue me). I made this a little too early and had to set it aside while I waited for the fish to completely thaw.


Here's my work station using take-out containers, which turned out to be quite handy. Flour, egg, panko crumbs, all with a little salt, pepper and chili powder mixed in.


Then a quick pan-fry.


Finished product: layers of watercress, the radish salsa, fried cod, cilantro and a squeeze of lime. The radishes, because they had been sitting in salted lime juice, had softened a bit which was tasty but not as crunchy. I think fish tacos typically have this mayo sauce which I didn't bother with. No matter--I really enjoyed this. The panko crust was key--this could easily be served as fish katsu. I had a small piece of fish leftover which I heated up in my toaster oven the next day and it was just as good as it was before.

Thanks NL, for suggesting fish. I'm so happy I tried this, because I loved it!