Tuesday, March 16, 2010

asparagus, halibut, tarragon and lime

One of my latest (last night!) cooking adventures, this recipe was inspired by one I found on Epicurious.com (linked here). I had never cooked with fresh tarragon before, but I'll definitely be doing it again! Tarragon has a subtle, sweet, licorice flavor that really sings when paired with these fresh veggies!

A note about the fish: I asked my brother a few days ago for good resources on finding sustainably-caught fish and he and my dad suggested these websites, from the
Monterrey Bay Aquarium and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Services. Based on their recommendations, I went with wild-caught Pacific (Alaskan) halibut, but cod works as well.

Halibut Special
Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 15x15-inch squares parchment paper (mine were bigger - I added more veggies!)
4 5-to 6-ounce fish fillets (such as halibut or cod; each about 1 inch thick
3 tablespoons tarragon leaves
olive oil
1 pound slender asparagus spears, trimmed, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 pound carrots, sliced into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
juice from 1 lime

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place parchment squares on work surface. Drizzle ~2 tsps of olive oil in the center of each parchment square; top each one with 1 fish fillet. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper; divide tarragon, asparagus, carrots and red onion evenly among 4 fillets, then drizzle with another ~1-2 tsps olive oil and lime juice. Fold parchment over fish and asparagus, folding and crimping edges tightly to seal and enclose filling completely. Place on 2 rimmed baking sheets (or a glass baking dish or two), spacing apart.


Here's a photo of the set-up, pre-baked.


Bake fish packets 17-25 minutes. Slide packets onto plates and serve. I ate it with steamed brown rice - delicious! Here's the final product:


2 comments:

Sarah Hidey said...

This looks great! I'm definitely going to try it :) Post some more good recipes! Glad I found your blog -- i've just re-started mine again...it had been years

LynnaeEtta said...

Thanks, Sarah! It was pretty delicious. :)

I'll post more recipes post-finals - I haven't been eating anything all that interesting lately, or had time to write about it!

What's your blog address?