It's become clear this trip that my darling really doesn't want fish unless it was flipped out of the water just a few hours ago, and I've struggled to find ways to use up the fish I packed along from our last Wild Alaskan shipment last fall. Surely, I thought, he'd like halibut and cod, even though he isn't crazy about salmon. There are some wonderful-looking recipes for fish in the Falastin book that use tahini sauce. I simply couldn't be motivated to mix the stuff in time to cook the already-thawed fish. Instead, I tried reproducing our "Roadway Inn Fish", named for the New Rodwan Hotel in Luxor (Egypt) that invented it. This is another one-off dish that we've made many times over the years and never gotten the same twice. The sauce is heavy on lemon and butter, has a touch of garlic and mustard, and delightful when done properly.
Well. First off, we've never tried this recipe on such thick fish filets. I sliced the thickest in half to enable it to cook more easily, and gave the two thickest cuts a head start before adding the other two to the pan. I don't think it matters to the finished product that I tried a dusting of corn starch to assist in frying without spatter. We usually only brown the fish slightly, if at all; sometimes we cook it in the butter/lemon sauce without any preliminary browning. I won't try frying fish with a crust for this dish again; it didn't fit.
Disappointment two: "Heavy" didn't begin to describe the lemon flavor! I know I was using Meyer lemon juice from the freezer, but I still used too much. Once it's in there it's difficult to cut down.
Disappointment three: the Trader Joe's Aioli Garlic Mustard, a staple for this dish (though you'd never find it in Egypt) has been sitting, sealed, in the cupboard so long that it's lost its mellow amber color and gone dark brown. I don't think it affected the flavor, but the appearance was quite unappetizing.
Actual disaster: the fish was TOUGH! How can fish be tough?? I've never had that happen. He was too disappointed by the sauce to detect the fish texture, but this is what makes me wonder whether the fish itself was partly to blame. I don't think it was overcooked, but later recooking didn't help.
The best part about this dish was the wild rice pilaf from the freezer that I put it over. That's small consolation. The next consolation is that I'm done with the cod and halibut from that shipment.
His "thumbs-up" was before he actually tasted the much-anticipated dish. He did, however, think the brussels sprouts were marvelous.
Meanwhile, when it's been his turn to cook it's been hash on the campstove...
...or Superburgers on the campstove.
Sometimes, simplicity is best. He certainly thinks so!
(He wanted me to show the "money shot" to note the presence of chopped onions in our burger mix.)
Edited to add, in case anyone's interested: here's a much earlier writeup on Roadway Inn Fish, complete with photo. We had no complaints about it being tough then, so this cod was a complicating factor.
