Fish Fridays

FRIDAY FISH: Smoked Salmon Arugula Salad –Featuring a Light Sour Cream Vinaigrette (You’ll want to use this vinaigrette a lot!)

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simple, healthy, easy

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My best sous

While I’m a bit late to the gate getting started on lenten –or any other time–FRIDAY FISH recipes, this one’s worth waiting for. I’ve been making it for a few months, though the story begins with just the vinaigrette. Ok; it’s a tish long of a story but worthwhile. Wanting to escape the traditional high-calorie olive oil vinaigrette … there are 480 calories in 1/4 cup of olive oil … I had paid close attention one day when my mentor Jacques Pépin (he doesn’t know he’s my mentor) mentioned something about using cream for a vinaigrette as it had 50 calories per tablespoon rather than the 120 for olive oil! Well, this little WW follower stood up and took notice, filing that away for posterity, but really for me. Not long afterward, making a salad, I thought about the yummy Daisy Light Sour Cream that saves my bu** so often while cooking. (I often stir a dollop into a bowl of pureed vegetable soup and skip the high-cal and fatty heavy cream too many cooks stir in at the end of cooking.) And, why, I ruminated, couldn’t I use it for a vinaigrette? If heavy cream was good enough for my man Jacques, why not light sour cream, which weighs in at 35 calories per tablespoon, for me? So, the next time I made salad, I made my vinaigrette just like always BUT — I whisked in Daisy Light Sour cream instead of extra virgin olive oil. Eureka!!! Voila!!! Bingo jingo!!! A lower-calorie, creamy vinaigrette was born. Hello, huge salads and maybe even caloric deficits.

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FRIDAY FISH: Tilapia Caesar Salad

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It is fairly, if not universally true: Wherever you go in the world, there is a Caesar Salad on the menu. You could be in a dive bar, a drive-in, a fast food place, a diner, a London hotel (as was I recently) or an honest-to-God halfway decent restaurant with your lunch girlfriends and there. it. is. A no longer cheap basic Caesar Salad is listed and then, at the bottom of the salad section– at least here in the U.S.– you’re told you can add the ubiquitous grilled chicken (or salmon, shrimp, or steak). Because I adore a well-made, simple no-chicken Caesar, I ordered it at a sweet place in Napa the last time– a few years ago now– our wine group visited. I was the happiest clam because this was not only one of the best Caesars I’d ever had (barely out-of-the-garden lettuce and the perfect Chardonnay in Napa, sigh) but it was bewitchingly showered with young, green-green, perfectly minced chives. Was anything ever better? Not that day! (Menu down below.)

At home, I make a few differently styled Caesars but don’t typically layer on protein except for copious amounts of salty Parmiagiano-Reggiano. My wannabe Caesars may contain a few different vegetables for health, happiness, and texture. But this last week, as I wondered how to use some of the three pounds of tilapia I’d scored for under $20 total at Costco, I realized I was going to throw together a Tilapia Caesar. Why not? If restaurants can put all that (ahem) grilled boneless chicken on their Caesar salad, why couldn’t I slip on a little fillet of nicely seasoned, tender white fish?! The tilapia, which my best sous and husband Dave had divided into 3 (1 lb.) packages, would, I know thaw quickly in a pot of cold water and cook in mere minutes. It would be not only good for us but cheap and fast. Nice.

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FRIDAY FISH: Tuna Patty Breakfast Stack

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I think most folks keep a few cans of tuna in the pantry for quick lunches or emergency dinners. It’s lovely food, inexpensive as protein goes, shelf stable, and versatile. I buy a stack of tuna cans at Costco, alternating every few months with canned salmon just so we have a change. We’re tuna salad for lunch people, maybe once or twice a month but during FRIDAY FISH weeks, looking for new uses for canned fish is something that keeps me hopping. Two weeks ago, including fish in a brunch dish in the spring lineup began to flit through my brain. Eggy meals complete with red meats line the menus of breakfast shops with only a veggie omelet, a smoked salmon benedict, or the occasional bowl of tan, sticky oatmeal to tempt someone looking for a healthier alternative. Why couldn’t there be a benny-ish sandwich utilizing a filling tuna patty topped with a gorgeous fried egg? The easy answer was that there could. I took the fish burger or salmon patty approach, but opened cans of tuna instead of salmon or chopping up raw cod. I added a few typical ingredients (panko, onion, garlic, egg) and then threw in dill, Old Bay, and a bit of ground cayenne for fun. What was so amazing was how fast these little tuna patties, as they came to be called, came together. And when I toasted and buttered an English muffin, topped one with that hot egg and a few garnishes, I was happy as a clam with my breakfast. (Why are clams happy?)

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FRIDAY FISH: Salmon Stir Fry

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Do you know Donna Hay? Sort of the Ina Garten cum Martha Stewart of Australia? Longtime doyenne of beautiful and luscious down under recipes, best-selling author of 26 cookbooks, editor-in-chief of donna hay magazine with nearly 600,000 subscribers; she’s a cook and writer worthy of your attention.

A few days ago, a lovely Donna recipe, Super Green Stir Fry, flew across my fb feed. My eye was caught; my mouth nearly watered. It was SO green. It did have rice noodles, though….but no meat! Probably Meatless Monday, hm? I was going to make it. Just like that. Except I’d been dreaming about a fish stir fry for Friday Fish. But I hadn’t yet figured it out. Dave, the best sous husband said, “Don’t you mean shrimp??” “Nope,” I said. “I mean fish.” Why couldn’t a famous woman like Donna help a home cook out?

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FRIDAY FISH: Fish and Chickpea Chowder

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Looking for St. Patrick’s Day Ideas? Just click on “St. Patrick’s Day” in the categories section at right to find my favorites including Salmon on Caraway Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread with Potato Soup, Salmon on Colcannon, Colcannon Soup, Traditional Kerry Apple Cake, and more.

Living in land-locked Colorado, we might not expect Front Range cooks to spend a whole lot of kitchen time on fish. Sure we can bring home a few trout now and again — under 16 inches and no more than four at a time — and there are, of course, some other fish in our state. Sometimes we even order online or great fishing friends gift us a few fillets after a lucky trip. Overall, though, we’re mostly limited to buying our dinner fish at the nearest grocery, warehouse, or specialty-food store. It turns out, the warehouse buy is not such a bad deal. The prices aren’t too awfully difficult and you might as well buy frozen fish from the frozen department. It’s less expensive, often flash-frozen at sea, and most likely the fish behind the counter in the grocery seafood department was once frozen, too. For real savings and ease, I buy a bag of frozen, individually cryovaced fillets now and again, most recently mahi mahi –in Hawaiian, it means strong-strong — that came in under $30 for three pounds.

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If you’re a regular reader, you might have read about the fish fajitas I made last week and yes, you guessed it, they’re mahi-mahi. Ready for FRIDAY FISH soup this week, I popped out two more 8-ounce fillets to make an herby and creamy chowder with a nice hint of tomato and an itty-bitty kick. Filling and healthy with chickpeas instead of the typical chowder potatoes, this vegetable-laden, high fiber, high protein stew comes together quickly and might take the place of clam chowder in your foreseeable future. Crusty bread? Butter? Cold oaky Chardonnay? Yes, please do!

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FRIDAY FISH: Guacamole Fried Fish Sandwich (Air Fryer or Oven)

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Looking for St. Patrick’s Day Ideas? Just click on “St. Patrick’s Day” in the categories section at right to find my favorites including Salmon on Caraway Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread with Potato Soup, Salmon on Colcannon, Colcannon Soup, Traditional Kerry Apple Cake, and more.

Growing up in the midwest, I knew from local community fried fish and chicken dinners — which were some of the most fun occasions of the year when kids mostly stayed home if they weren’t in school. No video games, but lots of tag and Monkey in the Middle until the sun went down. Local churches and fire stations seemed to have been built from the ground up complete with huge vats perfect for filling with hot oil and satisfying the neighborhood’s penchant for golden-crispy protein. (My own childhood church, First Presbyterian of Homewood, was more likely to ask the men’s group to serve up spaghetti dinners, so we had to go elsewhere for our fried fixes. When it’s not Covid-Tide, they’re lately feeding folks every Monday night so maybe they even sneak in some fish these days; who knows? Stop by and see.) During Lent, the corner bars and local restaurants jumped on the fishy bandwagon and often offered “all you can eat” fish and fries — sometimes until the food ran out. The custom goes on today in the midwest and elsewhere, including Colorado. In fact, even non-believers look forward to spring when there is a fish sandwich if not an “all you can eat” nearly any place you stop for a beer.

In Colorado Springs, get your fried fish at Tony’s Downtown Bar on Tejon or check with Culver’s on North Academy, where we recently scored big hot fried walleye sandwiches. (No beer, though and more’s the pity.)

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FRIDAY FISH: Salmon and Fresh Tomato Salsa on Garlicky Cauliflower Mash…and a Little Plating Fun

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With as much fish as we’re supposed to eat for health and six weeks of Friday Fish for Lent every year on this blog (this is now our second Covid Lent), salmon comes up pretty often on our menu. Our friend Chris likes to say, “Puh-leeze give me something else to do with salmon!” Over the years, I’ve come to enjoy serving salmon with at least two vegetables — so you’ve seen a few variations on this theme — hoping to eat less carbs or save them for some bread. I also simply want to increase our vegetable intake. Serving a smaller portion of fatty fish or red meat on a bed of vegetables or just to the side is not only a healthier way to eat (more vegetables), it makes the protein appear larger, more attractive, and puts it front and center for its closeup — an old tried and true restaurant ploy. So if it’s not really something new to do with salmon, it might just look and taste better!

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FRIDAY FISH: Oyster Po’ Boy with Horseradish Blue Cheese Sauce + Sweet Pepper Slaw

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When you travel all over the gorgeous United States of America, it’s simply part of the journey to sample the local fish or seafood sandwiches. Think about going to Maine without eating a Lobster Roll or to Maryland and missing a Crab cake Sandwich? How about Minnesota or Wisconsin and skipping that Walleye Sandwich? You can’t do it. I mean, it’s just nearly a great big part of the trip. Let your mouth water over Fried Catfish Sandwiches, a big Shrimp Bahn Mi, Gravlax with Dill and Capers or even Apple and Kale, Smoked Fish Sandwiches, Lox and Bagels, Tuna Wraps, or my favorite thick crispy Fish Wiches — an outgrowth of the Midwestern Lenten Friday Fish Fry and served up at many a local bar and grill. I mean, if you live and/or work in the midwest, you send someone out for a bag of them for the office or house, right? Everyone waits all year for that to happen. These sandwiches have a cult following–maybe because they’re not available all of the time. (FISH/SEAFOOD SANDWICH HONOR ROLL HERE.) Even here in Colorado, I’m pushing for my Southwestern Grilled Fish Sandwich with Green Chile Goat Cheese and Jicama Slaw to soon become can’t-live-without-them standard fare. (Insert tongue in cheek.) And you know we have stellar trout we smoke and eat as is or in a spread or fry up for breakfast? Even though Colorado isn’t the first to come to mind when you think of fish, you might be surprised at our bounty and book a fly fishing trip for the summer. Could you make a sandwich with a Colorado trout fillet? Of course; let’s just dream about what it might be… … …

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FRIDAY FISH: Cheesy Crab and Corn Chowder

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I’m not big on giving something up for Lent, though I’m observant as a progressive protestant Christian can be. I’ve been writing FRIDAY FISH every week on the blog for five years now just as a way to think about fasting from meat and to increase our health. What’s happened is that I’ve become more of a fish and seafood cook and have gone out on a pole limb recipe-wise. Gotten out of my recipe card so to speak. Each year I’m catching something new (oh, gee), tweaking an old dish, or just looking for less-expensive or more available options –particularly for those of us who live in landlocked states like Colorado where fish is available, but not on the scale or quality it is on the coasts.

…scroll down for more info on lent or eating fish on Fridays…

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