It’s Monday evening and I am in traffic on my way home. As if at least only mentally escaping the
traffic, my mind kept strolling in Paris
as I thought of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations program’s 100th episode inParis.
But this wasn't an escape from Istanbul to Paris, rather it
was an escape from the complexity of our city lives to the simplicity of the
dishes that were taking control of Paris’s culinary scene. The young chefs in
Paris were defying the old rules and simply inventing something new every day,
based on the day’s ingredients, aiming for elegant, tasty and healthy plates. One of these plates was so vivid in mind: some lightly sauteed filet of fish
on a bright green sauce.
They used thick slices of Chilean Sea Bass in the TV
program. It wouldn't have been possible form
e to find something like that today in Istanbul .... but I still tried to create
version of this recipe and made the following dish. I opened on the side a
bottle of California Zinfandel wine, which went really well with it.
The recipe as any has room for improvement and adjustments to your
taste, but it is fast, light, healthy and colorful….great for a simple week night
dinner.
Recipe for 2
In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup of green peas (frozen are
fine but fresh would be preferred), a glass of water (optionally chicken broth)
and 1 tablespoon of butter. Bring to
boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add 6-8 pieces of medium/large sized spinach leaves into the
pan and cook the spinach on low heat in the steam from the pea mixture until
the spinach wilts- don’t over cook as
the color will darken too much. Season
with salt and pepper to your taste, and puree the mixture with a hand blender, and
set aside somewhere to keep it warm until the fish is ready.
Cut in half two haddock fillets (or any other fish fillet). Pat them dry with a paper towel, season with
garlic powder, salt and black pepper.
Heat a large frying pan. Once
hot, add 2 tbps of olive oil and lightly saute the fish. When frying, first put the side of the fish
you want to display on your plate face down.
Don’t over fry the fish. 3
minutes on one side, and 2 on the other should be plenty.
Spoon some of the green sauce on a plate. Place two pieces of
fried fish on the sauce. I decorated
mine with julienned turnip to add even more color and freshness. A little lemon also went very well with
it. Bon appetit :)
