Pescado a la Veracruzana

If I see this dish on a menu, I have to order it, that’s just how it is. Fortunately, it’s really easy to make at home. This particular version came with the added benefit of a huge supply of newly roasted, hot, hatch chiles. The hot ones are no joke this year — get ready to sweat a little — but they add the perfect heat to this sauce. We served it with elotes and cilantro-lime rice.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 4 6oz tilapia or other white fish fillets, seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides
• Salt and pepper
• 1 yellow onion
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 14oz cans of diced tomatoes (Mexican seasoned work really well)
• 1 hot Hatch chile, roasted (sub Anaheim chile if can’t find Hatch)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• ⅔ cup pitted olives, halved (pimento-stuffed Spanish olives work well)
• ⅓ cup capers, drained

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat until it starts to shimmer. Sauté the fish until it’s opaque and just cooked through, 2-3 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the fish. Transfer to a glass baking dish where they fit snugly.
3. In the same pan, heat remaining olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onion and garlic and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, Hatch Chile, bay leaf, oregano, olives and capers and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for 10 minutes until the flavors combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pour the sauce over the fish in the baking dish and bake in the oven until fish is heated through, about 5 minutes.
5. Remove bay leaf and serve.

Adapted from Marcela Valladolid’s recipe on The Food Network

Wild Salmon with Rosemary Citrus Glaze, Shaved Honeydew, Fennel and Olive Salad and Wild Rice with Sage Brown Butter

Wild salmon with rosemary citrus glaze, shaved honeydew, fennel and olive salad and wild rice with sage brown butter.

One of the benefits of being back on the Weight Watchers is that it makes me so much more conscious of the food I’m eating.  That really is the point after all and I’m a little disturbed to discover just how unconscious my eating had become.  Don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t become a sleep eater (thank god) but I’d completely fallen into “open mouth – shovel in” as an automatic response to every whim.  This resulted in a very happy tongue but increasingly tighter clothes.

Paying attention is much better all around.  By cooking at home and controlling what goes into the food calorie-wise, it also makes me think about the quality of the ingredients and creativity of the recipes.  The more I read about food and agriculture, the more convinced I become of the importance of selecting non-processed, sustainable foods.  They’re much more expensive without a doubt, but the fact that we’re eating less of them almost makes it a wash.

I love salmon, but I’ve come to the point where I can’t bring myself to eat anything but wild-caught fish.  The fact that farm-raised salmon has to be artificially colored to even resemble salmon is a deal-breaker for me.  A dye job just doesn’t belong on a dinner plate.

That said, tonight’s dinner was caught in the wild and you could taste the freedom and love.  I pulled the glaze recipe from myrecipes.com.  Continuing my way through this month’s Bon Appetit, we dug out the mandoline and took a crack at the Shaved Honeydew, Fennel and Olive salad as a side.  Mixed reviews on this one, I think it would have been better if we’d used fancier Spanish olives but I was too lazy to deal with pits.  To round it out, Bri made his wild rice with sage brown butter, which is just plain amazing.

Dinner clocked in at 10 Weight Watchers points.

We went with Butter Chardonnay for the pairing, because how could you resist a wine called “Butter?”

WILD SALMON WITH CITRUS ROSEMARY GLAZE

Wild Salmon with Citrus Rosemary Glaze

INGREDIENTS

• 2 4-oz wild-caught salmon filets
• ½  teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 thin lemon slices
• ¼  teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Cooking spray
• 2 tablespoons minced shallots
• ¼  cup dry white wine
• ½  teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• ¾  cup fresh orange juice (about 2 oranges)
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup

PREPARATION

1. Preheat oven to 325.  Sprinkle filets evenly with salt and pepper and place two lemon slices on each filet.  Place salmon in a baking dish, cover with foil and bake until salmon is flaky, about 20 minutes.
2. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add shallots; sauté 30 seconds. Stir in wine and rosemary; cook 30 seconds or until liquid almost evaporates. Add juice and syrup; bring to a boil, and cook 1 minute. Spoon glaze over salmon and serve.

SHAVED HONEYDEW, FENNEL AND OLIVE SALAD

Shaved Honeydew, Fennel and Olive Salad

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
• 1 ½ pounds honeydew melon, rind and seeds removed, shaved on a mandoline
• ½ fennel bulb, shaved on a mandoline, plus 2 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fennel fronds
• ¼ cup brined green olives, 
such as Castelvetrano, pitted, 
very coarsely chopped

PREPARATION

1. Whisk orange juice, lemon juice, and 
2 Tbsp. oil in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add melon, shaved fennel, 
and olives to vinaigrette and toss to coat. Top salad with orange zest and fennel fronds, and season with salt and pepper.

 

WILD RICE WITH SAGE BROWN BUTTER

Wild Rice with Sage Brown Butter

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup of wild rice
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 8 fresh sage leaves coarsely chopped

PREPARATION

1. Prepare wild rice in a rice cooker or on stove top. (My rice preparation knowledge is limited because I’m completely dependent on our Zojirushi rice cooker.
2. Melt butter over high heat, add sage leaves and stir constantly until butter starts to brown.
3. Pour over rice and mix well

Pan Bagnat

Pan Bagnat

Working in the Richmond District of San Francisco, one of my favorite places to go for lunch is Cafe Rigolo.  The French do lunch (and really, all food) so well, it’s hard not to turn to a little French bistro for lunch to remind you that there’s beauty in the world.  It always makes things better.  Every time I go to Cafe Rigolo, I order the same sandwich, so when I saw a version of it on Food 52, it seemed like a sign.  I had to make it.  I’m so glad I did.  This is one of the best things we’ve made in a long time.  So light and delicious and wonderful.  We served it for dinner with a broccoli kale soup (which I’ll be posting in a minute).  It’s one of those things that you make where you plan when you’re going to make it again while you’re eating it.  Sooooooo GOOD!  Good company and a glass of chardonnay knocks it out of the park!

• 1/2 loaf crusty French baguette (being San Franciscans, we used a sourdough baguette to great effect)
• 1 clove garlic, cut in half
• 4-6 basil leaves
• 1 (6oz) can tuna
• 3/4 cups Nicoise or Kalamata olives, sliced
• 1/2 cup red bell pepper, seeded and sliced thin
• 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup Italian flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 jar or can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (optional)
• 1/4 cup blanched French green beans, sliced into thirds (optional)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. PREP THE BREAD: Slice the loaf of bread in half lengthwise. Remove some of the insides of the bottom half to create a trough into which the filling will go. Brush both halves with a little extra virgin olive oil. Rub each with the garlic. Line the half with the trough with the basil leaves. Then mince the garlic and sprinkle it over the bread.
2. MIX THE SALAD: In a mixing bowl, combine the tuna, olives, red bell pepper, onion, parsley, artichoke hearts (if using) and green beans (if using). In a measuring cup or small bowl, whisk the lemon juice into the olive oil until it is emulsified/combined. Pour the vinaigrette into the tuna mixture and stir to combine. Season to taste with sea salt and pepper.
3. ASSEMBLE: Spoon tuna mixture into the trough of the baguette over the basil leaves.