When it comes to cooking fish, beginner cooks often grow flustered and confused, and just end up making chicken again. Who can blame them? Which fish to buy, how to select it, and how to properly cook it, are not common knowledge - whereas chicken’s always chicken. Well, beginner cooks, I’m here to tell you that fish is actually one of the easiest proteins to make.
Start by checking out your local seafood store (plastic-wrapped supermarket fish is rarely fresh) and get the best fish your money can buy. The flesh should be plump and bright, and it should smell like the ocean; a strong fishy odor, conversely, will tell you it’s past its prime. Fish with a high oil content (like salmon) will smoke and be really smelly if cooked on the stove-top - us folks with tiny NYC apartments would be best advised to avoid that and cook salmon in the oven instead. Lean fish (like flounder and tilapia) is safe to pan-fry wherever.
This oven-poached flounder is so easy and so low maintenance, I’m convinced it’s the perfect fish recipe for beginners. Just preheat the oven, combine your sauce ingredients, add the fish, and in under 15 minutes, you’ll have an awesome fish dish. Feel free to substitute flounder with sea bass or tilapia here. I served it over polenta, but it’d be great with pasta or quinoa, too.
Oven-poached flounder with tomatoes and lemon
(Yield: 4 servings)
Ingredients:
- 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes (preferably low sodium)
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon) + a few lemon slices
- 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 Tbsp. chopped dill (basil or parsley would also do)
- Sea salt + freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3/4 lb flounder fillets, cut into serving portions
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 450F. In an 8×8″ baking dish, stir together tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic and dill with salt and pepper. Slide fish into sauce, season with salt and pepper, and top with lemon slices. Bake just until fish is opaque, 10-12 minutes. Garnish with extra herbs, if desired.
What is your go-to way of preparing fish?
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