I had to make dinner early because tonight was dress rehearsal for our “gig.” It’s important to go to “band” practice well fueled, you need a meal in your belly to absorb the illicit drugs and free flowing alcohol and the groupies, who can be expected to provide – um – gratification, may not show up with snacks.
First, I roasted the chilies in a very hot oven. While that was happening, I sliced the corn from the cob and tossed it in the pan with the chilies until the corn just started to brown. I separated the corn from the chilies – I’d sliced the chilies in big pieces – and put the fish on top of sliced lime and green onions. I squeezed lime juice over the whole thing, sprinkled the fish with cumin and cayenne pepper, covered the skillet with foil, and put it back in the oven.
While the fish was cooking I chopped a bunch of cilantro and mixed it in with the corn. I squeezed some more lime juice over the corn, mixed in a little salt, a little cayenne. Nothing to it. When the fish was done, I plated it on a bed of fresh cilantro, spooned the lime and onion sauce over it, and ate it with the corn salsa.
It’s possible that I don’t like cod for more than your classic deep fried fish and chips or maybe some kind of stew. Cod is rather a humble working class sort of fish and maybe I am a snob, too uppity for the likes of it. I’m not sure. I only know that the fish on the plate was a bit chewy and tough, a bit bland for the likes of its companions, the roasted peppers and the salsa. This would have been fantastic with halibut, or, heaven forbid, Chilean Sea Bass. It occurs to me in retrosect that I could have stuffed everythign – the corn, the cilantro, and the fish – diced small – into the pepper a cooked it that way for a sort of Fish Relleno. My way, the end results on the fish were just so so.
I had initially planned to make a fish curry, stewing the fish in coconut milk with curry paste and maybe some green beans, but my head was turned in a Tex-Mex direction, I’m not sure why. I’d have done better to follow my instincts. The method and the combination I came up with was really very good, but the choice of fish? Not so good. Note to fish eaters: Stew your cod or fry it and have it with chips. Don’t go all fancified on it, it’s a bit like lipstick on a pig.
Dinner did work as intended; I was totally fueled for practice. It was big fun. Especially when our drummer, a guy with some experience said this: “It occurs to me that you all know each other. You ought to be able to just call out a song and work through it together without your music. Pretend your music caught on fire. Let’s see what you can do.” We played a few songs – Sway, Beautiful Kauai, Cherry Pink, then, to wrap it up, I taught everyone the chord progression for I Will Survive. We played a rousing twangy version complete with drums and tambourine.
We will survive. Catch us early – 5:30 – at the West Seattle Senior Center for Rainbow Bingo. Tonight, Friday, August 17th.
[tags]Fish Wednesday, cod[/tags]
Mmmm, lovely. But yeah, cod can be a dry and boring sort of fish if left to its own devices. Much better, as you say, in a kind of saucy dish or just battered and fried. We’re having guests tomorrow night and I had also planned to do the fresh corn saute thing to go with some barbeque.