Flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified

On Sunday, my girlfriend Michelle came over to pick something from Shakespeare's Kitchen for me to cook for her. It was kind of like Iron Chef, but with a whole recipe.

Eventually, we settled on Flounder with Dried Plums. Boring name, but the dish itself seemed interesting. There were a number of other recipes that had to be vetoed due to a lack of Renaissance Stock - we decided to err away from cheating with storebought stock. So it was off to Whole Foods to pick up ingredients. We hit up the fish first, and learned that Whole Foods did not actually have flounder. Thwarted immediately! Luckily, the fishmongers there are extremely knowledgeable and monged us a replacement. Here we have the American Plaice in its natural habitat. And as it turns out, plaice is a type of sole which is a type of flounder. So we both did and did not have the right fish.

Whole Foods is really good about providing me with replacements, but surprisingly annoying with not having things in the first place. There was a distinct lack of both mace and savory in the spice aisle. While I futilely scanned the shelves for hidden spices, Michelle did some internet research for substitutes. As it turns out, you can replace savory with sage or thyme. Sage and thyme are already in the dish. Ah well. Marjoram also works, so we went with marjoram. We also discovered that mace is a part of nutmeg, and I totally had nutmeg. In fact, getting to reuse the dried plums from the Chicken with Wine, Apples, and Dried Fruit really drove home the fact that I have useful items in my pantry. The sage, thyme, nutmeg, brown sugar, raisins (standing in for the ever-elusive currants), plums, and verjuiceish were all in existence in my kitchen even before I started. We almost made carrots because I had carrots. I'm like a real adult.

I've started to notice that as I cook, I'm really good at putting away all the contained ingredients (bottles, boxes, spice containers, etc.) immediately after I use them. It keeps the kitchen clean, keeps the work area clear, and keeps me from adding the same spice twice. Although sometimes I still have to lean in really close and stare at the pile of mixed spices in the middle of the pan and decide that no, I didn't accidentally add sage without putting away the sage. Not that this happened. I blame the fact that the things I was working with weren't exactly the same as the list in the cookbook. I also learned that grating nutmeg straight into a pan is extremely gratifying.

Next, I pulled out a plate to put the fish on to season it. After getting two pieces on, I realized that the fish wouldn't actually fit. I think I had something like the panko-crusting or dredging in flour in mind, but I'm not sure why; I was just supposed to use some salt and pepper. Laying the fish out on the paper it came in was a much better idea. Michelle commented that she had been wondering what I was doing, and I had to explain that if I appeared to be messing up while cooking, I was probably messing up. So that's one plate wasted (you can see it in the sink in the pic below). The one bright side is that the plate issue led to me holding the plate over the saute pan and realizing that the fish wouldn't all fit in the pan either. Don't worry, we improvised.

Here we are, ready to go. That's butter and the verjuiceish hanging out in the middle. When I reconsider this, maybe leaving a cutting board with a knife on it hanging off the counter between the fish and the pan wasn't my best idea. Especially since I was done with all those things, so the only reason to leave them out was to inflict self-harm.

The plums are getting occasionally mashed and starting to color the wine, which means it's just about time to put the fish on. Michelle has snuck a taste, and is beginning to suspect maximum delicious is on approach.

Speaking of sneaking a taste, the one thing that I forgot to do with this recipe was taste along the way. It's the advice I've been getting most often from people who cook, and I never remember to do it. Michelle was snagging the bits of fish that broke off and poking at the sauce the whole time, and I was sort of bemused until I realized that by the end I still didn't know what the whole thing would taste like. This recipe doesn't offer a lot of room for corrections, though - all the spices go in first, so it's not like tasting the fish when it's done lets me travel back in time to change the sauce. So that's my excuse this time around.

Back to the cooking. The fish goes on top of the simmering sauce, and sits there. I may not have mentioned it before, but this recipe is really quick and easy.

After a minute or two, the heat goes away and the whole thing gets covered. Another minute or two and the fish is done. 

Since the pan wasn't big enough, we had to remove the first two pieces of fish and then repeat the previous two steps. So here they are again.

Meanwhile, Michelle has been hard at work steaming asparagus for a side dish. The biggest problem with Shakespeare's Kitchen is that the dishes are really self-contained. Most of the animal entrees don't have a significant vegetable component, and none of the vegetable dishes are really something you'd want to use as a vegetarian entree. Michelle also picked out the wine we used (a Viognier which I failed to take a picture of) at Adega, which is a fun little wine cafe in downtown Silver Spring. Any place that asks you "for here or to go?" when you hand them a bottle of alcohol is ok by me. Finally, Michelle was also also responsible for the decision to make cherry pie w/ice cream one of the ingredients of the meal. What I'm trying to say is that she did all the important parts.

Once the fish was done, the sauce was ready to be thickened. I turned the heat up, and it was done fast. I think it was partly due to the resimmering for the second batch of fish. Adding the verjuiceish and butter had to happen immediately, and the heat came off right away.

All that was left was plating. We were worried that the sauce had thickened to the point where there wouldn't be enough, but a little of this stuff goes a long way. It was seriously good, but the taste was very strong. It's mostly the plum and rosemary, but everything does its part. Any more than what we used and you wouldn't be able to taste the fish underneath. On a side note, I was a little upset that there wasn't any left to try on the ice cream. Although, I do have all the ingredients necessary to make more...

This is also where I learned that Blogger won't turn pictures for me. Oops. Anyway, turn your head to the right and feast your eyes.

Verdict: delicious! Possibly the best recipe so far. The fish picks up some very specific flavors while cooking, and they're not exactly the same as the sauce. The whole thing is really quick and simple - I think slicing the plums was the most difficult part of the prepwork. And since almost everything in the recipe comes from the pantry, this is pretty cheap to remake. I'm almost out of dried plums, but I'm going to purchase a larger container to keep around. If I were the kind of person who could keep an open bottle of wine around for more than a day, the only thing I'd ever have to pick up at the store for this would be the fish itself. I think this is going to be a staple in the repertoire. When I get around to having a repertoire, that is.


The night went well enough that I'm going to claim this is what we did for our anniversary.