Poached Fish With Lemon

This is so easy. I made this tonight and served it alongside French Carrot Salad and fresh green beans, and it was a fantastic meal. Simple and fast, with clean flavors that complement each other and balance one another beautifully. It's pretty too: colorful enough to be sophisticated, and fast enough to be everyday casual. Amazing.

The one thing about this recipe that you CANNOT mess with: you want everything to be as fresh as possible. Tilapia is the freshest fish I could find, so that's what I used. My fish was caught on the same day that I prepared it. If you have cod or swordfish or even a really good salmon supplier that can get you fish that was caught today, use that. Two hints to help find fresh fish if you're not buying from a fish market: hunt down your grocery store's fish or meat manager and ask when the fish came in. In my experience, they'll love you for taking an interest, and they'll go above and beyond to help you out if you tell them that you want the freshest thing they have and that it's important. Tip two: if you can't find the manager to tell you what the freshest thing is, pick the white-fleshed fish with the pinkest veins. Pink means that the blood in the fillet hasn't had time to oxidize. DO NOT BUY FISH WITH WHITE FLESH AND BROWN VEINS OR CENTER LINES.  Brown means that the fish is old. Fresh fish should be white and pinkish-red. No exceptions. If all that your market or grocery has is brown, switch your dinner plans away from a fish dish, and consider beef or chicken.

Another tip: lemon juice in bottles and actual juice from actual lemons are different things. This recipe calls for both. Do not mistake the former for the latter. There is a good reason to have an actual lemon on hand to make actual lemon wedges for diners to squeeze over their fillets. Finally, there is no substitute for fresh parsley here. None of the dried stuff. It's not an expensive recipe overall, so go ahead and buy the fresh parsley. Your mouth will thank you when your recipe turns out amazing.


Poached Fish With Lemon
Adapted from a recipe from Orangette.


4 or 5 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
8-10 branches Italian parsley, well-rinsed
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp lemon juice (bottled)
Water
2 tilapia fillets, sliced down the center line to make 4 portions (IMPORTANT NOTE: what you're going for here is four portions. If you use swordfish or salmon, then four portions will obviously be different than if you use tilapia or a similarly thinner fish. It's okay. What you want here is four portions of whatever fish you can get fresh.)
1 lemon, cut into 1/4 wedges
Salt
Pepper


Take the fish out of the fridge. Sprinkle salt and pepper over one side of the fillets, rub it in a bit, then turn them over and sprinkle-then-rub the other side. Let the fish sit aside to absorb the seasoning.

In the mean time, slice the leaves off the parsley stems. Discard the stems, and place the leaves, along with the minced garlic and 1 tsp salt into a 12-inch skillet or sauté pan. Add water to a depth of about 1 1/2 inches. (Seriously. Measure it. I used a ruler.) Add the bottled lemon juice. Bring the whole deal to a boil, cover it, then turn down the temperature until it's barely on the edge of boiling and let the whole thing simmer for 15 minutes. Your kitchen will probably smell like parsley and garlic.

When the poaching liquid is ready, gently place your fish fillets into the pan. Cover it again, and cook for 8 minutes if you're using tilapia. If you're using another fish, then the rule of thumb is 'use 8 min per inch' on the thickness of your fish steaks. Apply this rule to salmon, swordfish, mahi mahi, etc. If your fish is less than an inch thick, cook it for 8 mins (no really, time it), and call it a day.  Your poaching liquid should be VERY gently boiling: try to achieve a temp at which your water is barely bubbling, but also is not still.

When your fish is done, transfer each portion to a plate (I'd advise against serving it out of a serving dish, because the fish would cool down. You want to serve this as fresh and hot as you possibly can, so that the fish goes from saute pan to plate to mouth with as little interruption as possible). Use a 1/4 wedge of lemon per portion to sprinkle juice over the fish.

Makes 4 servings.