Saturday, July 19, 2008

Mediterranean fish fillet

My version of a dish served during one of our office's special events. I couldn't ask the caterer for her recipe—that's her business edge after all—so I kind of had to guess what she put in it, ending up with another un-recipe. I do know that it's based on the Provençal tapenade (a paste of black olives, capers and olive oil), because that's what she calls her dish. But she didn't use a paste and she put sun-dried tomatoes, so I think that it's actually more Mediterranean than French.

My changes: (1) sun-dried tomatoes are not easily available here so I had to use fresh tomatoes, so I lost the tartness of the sun-dried tomatoes, which I like; and (2) the caterer's version was baked, but I couldn't get the gas oven to work, so I cooked it stove-top. This, and using fresh tomatoes, at least gave me a dish that was more moist than the caterer's.

My one kilo of fish (I again used creamy dory), had four fillets. Since I don't have a pan which can accommodate all four, I had to cook them in two batches. Not difficult, don't worry, since fish cooks quite fast.




small bottle sliced green olives
small bottle sliced black olives
small bottle capers
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsps butter
1 kilo fish fillet

1. Sauté all the olives and capers in about one tablespoon of olive oil for about one minute. Set aside. Divide into eight servings (for four fillets—the idea is two servings of the mixture per fillet).

2. Put a dab of butter in the pan and melt it. Place the fillets of fish in the pan and spoon one serving of the olive mixture on top of each fish. Cover the pan and wait about three minutes.

3. Flip the fish over with the olive mixture—try to place as much of the olive mixture under the fish. Spoon another serving of the olive mixture over each fish. Cover and cook until done.

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