One-and-Done Fish Recipes
File this under "dinner tonight"
It was a weekend: Family birthday celebration for my now 18-year-old, Masters viewing, lots of cake, ice cream and pimento cheese. Not exactly in that order. Enter the one pan fish dinner to put my world back to level. Vegetables, a flaky white fish and one pan to clean.
First, for those of you who are golf fans, can we talk about what a great guy Scottie Scheffler is? I mean, I don’t know him personally, but he just seems like a good person. I loved watching him wait for his caddy after he won The Masters and wave him forward toward the cottage for interviews. He just seems to have a “rising tide” mentality — the opposite of the big ego athlete. Enough about that because we need to get to the fishy stuff, but I had tears in my eyes after his win.
Fish is something I love to teach because it can be intimidating, but once you simplify and give some specifics it becomes approachable. The biggest tip I can give you is not to overcook your fish, it’s better to slightly undercook it and let it come up to temperature as it rests. The internal temperature for food safety standards of cooked fish is 145 degrees. That can happen fast with thin filets — in as little as 4-5 minutes. So watch the temp and be sure not to exceed 145 degrees!
Fearless Fish is the name of an online class I used to teach over 3 days on Zoom. We’d cook through a dozen or so recipes and I’d share cooking methods, fish-buying tips and tons of extra bonus recipes and sauces. (It’s available as a recorded class on Smart in the Kitchen School with about 50 recipe downloads if you want to check it out.)
Buying Fish
If you want great fish delivered to your door, stock up on Fish-Fixe for healthy weeknight dinners. Use code SITK15 for $15-off your first order. I love their mahi mahi, salmon, cobia, trout and haddock.
If I’m purchasing fish at a market, I like to shop somewhere with a lot of turnaround. In Houston, that’s either H-E-B or Central Market, which is my absolute favorite spot to buy fish but it’s an across town jaunt for me.
Favorite Equipment for Cooking Fish
Sheet Pans. Nordicware makes my favorite half-sheet pan that I use for almost everything. You can sometimes find them at Costco and Target has them for a great price! Or you can get a 2-pack from Amazon. Everyone always asks about my white enamel 1/4 sheet pans, shown in the parchment paper fish recipe above.
I line my sheet pans with parchment paper sheets for easier cleanup. I don’t cook on foil because I really don’t want aluminum to leach into my food. My grandmother had Altzheimer’s and anything I can do to protect my brain health is high on my list.
Parchment paper bags are awesome for our fish in parchment paper recipe. Have you made this yet? It’s one of my favorite fish recipes from my cookbook and I also have an older version on my blog.
Fish spatula – I love these for everything! So flexy!
Instant read thermometer – The internal temp of fish is 145 (although for some fish I go slightly lower than that. More details on that in the course. It's mostly a preference on texture, but I especially like salmon cooked to 140 and then it comes up to temp as it rests.)
A few notes. The reason these recipes don’t call for a specific type of fish is that I want you to go to the store and look with your eyes and talk to the fish monger (does anyone use that term anymore? “Person that works at the fish counter” is just a little clunky.) Fish should smell like where it came from, the ocean or the lake, and have clear eyes. Of course, the eye tip isn’t useful 90% of the time because the fish has already been fileted. And I have never asked to smell a filet while shopping at H-E-B, although I’d love to ask just to see the reactive of the fish monger.
Today I went to H-E-B and purchased a center piece of wild Halibut from Alaska. I looked at my available options, which were cod, red snapper or halibut. The cod was on sale for half as much as the other two, but I couldn’t resist the fresh piece of halibut that looked like it had great texture. I love to ask questions before deciding what to purchase, and after chatting with the “fish dude” he grabbed a new piece of halibut for me and cut out a center portion. It looks amazing and I can’t wait to cook it for dinner tonight with shallots, roasted tomatoes and red chili flakes (the second recipe below). A simple salad is all you need on the side, although I know my carb-fiend children will want rice or pasta. I’ll make them one of the pre-cooked frozen Jasmine rice packets from Trader Joe’s. It’s a Monday night, after all, and I don’t want to wash any other pots except for my fish pan. Night, friends!
Great recipes! Can you share the one for the fish in parchment with peasand a green sauce?
These recipes sound great! Will try this week.