Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The unremarkable fishgratine

Everyone needs to eat more fish, right? My shameful secret is that i don't actually have a good clue as to how to prepare fish. I can do fishsticks in the oven, and i can on rare occations, muster up a lovely salmon. But lets face it. Ordinary fish.. not really a big favorite for me.
Well.. this block of whitefish have been sitting in the very back of my freezer for so long, it was nearing my personal "omg, cannot eat somethign thats been in my freezer that long" level. And since I am a frugal and pennypinching taurus, that means that I had to find a recepie and I had to do it now. I started early this morning, preparing kiddo about the coming fish for dinner, and he looked at me and reminded me it has been a very long time since we had pizza. But no can do!
Tonight I served Fishgratine with lemonsauce and cheese, together with potatoes and green beans. And kiddo ate it all, without complaining. Could have something to do with dinner being almost 30 minutes later than usual *sheepish grin*.
I loved it though and will have to repeat this.

Lemonfishgratine (serves 2-3 depending on how large portions you want)
about 15 cm of leek, thorolly rinced and cut up.
1 block of "white" fish, such as Cod (just this once.. it was already too late for these fish to make a political statement regarding the overfishing of our waters..) 600 grams.
lemonjuice
salt
lemonpepper
1 piece of fishbroth (as power)
250 g of minifraiche (5% fat cremefraiche. I am sure you can use anykind of cremecraich, or ordinary cookingcreme)
1 tetra (2.5 dl) of pre-made lemonsauce (Keldas is the brand I used)

small handful of grated cheese ( i used lowfat cheese 12% )

Chop up the leeks and cover the bottom of a small ovensafe dish while you thawing out the fish a little in the microwave until you can separate the fish it into 4 pieces. Place the fish ontop and pour generous ammounts of lemonjuice, and seasoning ontop of the fish. Cover with cremefraiche and pour the sauce over it. Into the oven at 225 degrees celcius until the fish is done.. Start cooking the potatoes and veggies of your choice. After about 20 minutes you can take out the ovendish and cover with a little cheese.. this will give the fish a little more color and a great flavor since the sauce will basically "melt of the fish and not be much of a nuisance at all except as a flavorful cookingliquid, which is wonderful for anyone like me that hate having sauce stack up the calories. Once the cheese has a good color (10-14 minutes) you can consider the fish done. I turned the oven off at this point, keeping the food warm for a little longer until the potatoes were done.
Tasted wonderful, and I wish I had taken a picture, but i was leaning towards "failure" all the way until I ate it.
Kiddo ate it all without hesitation, and rated it "great", which is always a plus. A negative factor to a meal like this is that it wont make me stay full for long. But that is what dessert is good for I guess. Fish is so slimfood anyways.
Cannot be served to the dutchman. He hates fish.

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