Pan Seared Haddock with Chili Lime Butter Accompanied by Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Glazed Carrots

Forgive the Presentation

After I finished my first posting I was so pumped I thought I would do another posting based on tonight's planned dinner.  This evening's planned meal is one of my favourites.  Recently, my partner Spencer and I decided we would try and decrease the amount of meat we were consuming.  I mentioned Michael Pollan in my previous post, his influential work Omnivore's Dilemma really hit home in terms of its core message to cut our meat consumption in order to help limit our impact on the environment.  Both Spencer and I are die hard meat eaters so the easiest was to try and cut the meat was to pump up our fish intake.

The above recipe was one of the one's added to my repertoire.  Simple, classic in flavour, and smooth on the palate this simple fish recipe helped convert me from my normal fish phobic younger self.  I'm not sure where I got the recipe from but it isn't in any of my cookbooks so I can only assume it came from one of my many web browsings.  If you will forgive my sloppy presentation (off centre with far too much mash) you will find a plate with garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and of course the chili lime fish.  Let me just delve quickly into all three to give you my thoughts.

Carrots:  This recipe shouldn't be surprising to anyone as most of our mother's made something similar, but this one has a few nice touches to it.  It is from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1.  You simply need to simmer the carrots with some sugar in addition to some beef stock and a little butter.  Once you the liquid has simmered off all thats left is a rich sauce of butter and carmelized sugar.  Sligthly sweet but still amply savoury and delicious.

Mash:  Just a simple mashed potato with about 1/4 cup of milk and 1 tb of butter to the pound of potatoes.  Far less than most recipes would suggest, but what I do is add a bit of garlic to the boiling poatoes so that when I mash the potatoes I end up with a nice garlic flavour, and the garlic adds to the creaminess of the potato.

Fish:  I used Haddock which is relatively cost effective.  The first time I made this I used Halibut, which was really quite good but we watch our intake of Halibut given our concerns over mercury, and using Haddock is a bit more budget friendly for the average evening dinner.  I simply pan fry the haddock in a bit of olive oil and then top with a compound butter that has a bit of green chili, shallots, and lime juice, salt and pepper. 

It might seem that there is a lot of fat in this dish but you have to keep in mind that while theres a bit of butter in the mash, in the carrots, and on the fish, the haddock itself is essentially fat free, and the rest of the meal is just a bit of potato and carrot.  Overall the whole meal rings in between 600-700 calories, which for an active guy my size is very reasonable for a main meal.   Most importantly, the potatoes are creamy and luxurious, the carrots add a touch of sweet, and the fish gives you a sligth flaky crispness from the fry accentuated by a nice smooth slightly tangy compound butter.  A great simple meal that came together in about an hour.

Till next time my friends

Cheers

Kenny