{"id":1945,"date":"2014-08-16T22:53:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T22:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=1945"},"modified":"2014-08-16T22:53:59","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T22:53:59","slug":"grilled-halibut-salsa-verde-eggplant-with-oregano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=1945","title":{"rendered":"grilled halibut & salsa verde, eggplant with oregano"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"halibut_Japanese_eggplant\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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For a very long time I’ve been thinking of halibut as a kind of\u00a0holy grail. \u00a0 I think it’s because it’s so minimal and\u00a0because it’s a beautiful piece of fish, either as a fillet or as a double steak. \u00a0\u00a0I also\u00a0know how delicious it is, and I know how easy to prepare – and how versatile – it is. \u00a0 It’s also because\u00a0I\u00a0don’t see it in the Greenmarket (does it ever show up here?), and\u00a0because it’s almost always very expensive in New York City. \u00a0There’s also\u00a0that\u00a0tantalizing picture I see almost every time I open my copy of\u00a0the\u00a0“Italian\u00a0Two Easy”<\/a>\u00a0London River Cafe cookbook. \u00a0The image is appears on page 194, across from\u00a0a very simple recipe for “Halibut on the Bone” (on the bone, because the taste of fish, just as with\u00a0meat, gains from being cooked with the bone).<\/p>\n

I wanted to serve fish last night, but I had been unable to get to\u00a0the Union Square Greenmarket\u00a0because we had to be\u00a0ready for a photo shoot inside the apartment. \u00a0When we emerged from that stimulating\u00a0experience hours later, I headed down the block to our local Whole Foods to pick up something which wouldn’t require much time or assembly. \u00a0I can usually count on finding a good piece of wild salmon there, but even before I had gotten all the way to\u00a0the counter I spotted it: \u00a0\u00a0a display of double steaks of halibut, looking exactly like those featured in the Gray and Rogers book, except that they\u00a0still needed the attentions\u00a0of a cook. \u00a0The price per pound was exactly half of what I’ve been seeing around town for months, so I didn’t hesitate a second. \u00a0Besides, the halibut was taken from waters just north of our own temperate Atlantic \u00a0shores (somewhere off eastern Canada), and had probably not been\u00a0frozen, while the salmon would have had\u00a0\u00a0to swim all the way from Alaska, and certainly had been frozen somewhere along the way. \u00a0The price of wild fish, including salmon and halibut especially, can fluctuate dramatically; \u00a0I try to take advantage of the best market opportunities.<\/p>\n

It was delicious, it was easy\u00a0(and\u00a0that includes\u00a0the\u00a0very good \u00a0– and itself very versatile – salsa verde which can be finished even before heating a pan), and I’m going to keep looking for it in the Greenmarket.<\/p>\n