Halibut with Cauliflower Puree and Morels

Only we couldn't source Morels, so I use Crimini...

I apologize for the delay in posting as of late. My day job has been kicking my ass and Laurie is working overnights...so, most of our meals have been thrown together pantry creations that we can eat for a week, or dining out. It hasn't left us much time to 'experiment' in the kitchen. This weekend, however, I needed a 'good food' fix. On Friday, we went to a Glen Livet dinner at Stage Left, in New Brunswick, which was awesome. Saturday we went 'good' comfort food at Skylark Diner, (where we ironically were sitting across the restaurant from David Corcoran the NJ restaurant reviewer from the NY Times. Sunday...we decided to do a couple of recipes from the Nicholas Cookbook.

Laurie picked this dish for us to do this weekend. It was one of those weekends you learn quickly when you're married, that if your wife picks a dish...you do the dish. Nevermind that I'm not much of a seafood eater, I don't care much at all for cauliflower, mushrooms and well, fava beans? Ok, so how I feel about this dish is equivalent to how Laurie feels about Oysters! Nevertheless, I had a nice long 10 mile run yesterday, which means I'll eat just about anything.

We recently discovered that the local ShopRite, (Which, due to it's extremely high volume and ethnically diverse clientele, is pretty awesome) now carries good flash frozen fish. Yellowfin, Halibut, and a bunch of other stuff that is 'meh' at other places even though its fresh. I'm not sure why I mentioned it, because we ended up going to Wegmans to get the Halibut anyway,...but I digress...

The best part of cooking fish is for the most part, it's quick. This recipe was no exception.

We started out by boiling the cauliflower for the puree.

Then...we pureed it with some butter. Done.

Next we prepped the beans and the mushrooms...

and...done!

Almost lastly, we made the lemon caper sauce. This sauce consisted of using some carrot stock, which I had in the freezer (win!), butter, brown butter (which I also had in the freezer! double win!), lemons and capers.

Then, finally, the fish came last. This part always makes me nervous. I'm not sure why, but I have no issues cooking an expensive Wagyu steak to perfection without worrying about ruining it, but stick fish in front of me, and I get a little nervous.

The recipe called for breading one side in panko...but not just regular panko...ground/food processed panko. What's the difference you say? one is good, and one is awesome when used for breading. The next time you bread anything, grind up some panko.

Then we threw it in the oven for a few more minutes...

We cracked open the recommended bottle of wine (A Russian River Valley Chardonnay)

Thoughts: For a dish in which 80% of the components were on my 'usually don't eat' list, I really really enjoyed it. I must confess that I had a variation of this dish at Nicholas a few times so I didn't go into it completely thinking I wouldn't like it. I'd absolutely make this dish for guests, even those picky eating guests you never want to invite over. The wine pairing also went really well. We're filing this one into the 'cook often' folder. I think I'm officially a seafood eater, and I like it.

Up Next: Well...spring is here. There are quit a few spring recipes in this book we've been itching to get to all winter!  I also need a Nicholas fix...Hey blog friends, my birthday is coming up on April 14th...throwing me a party at Nicholas is a good idea...just saying...