Winner Winner Catfish Dinner

I’ve always said, “It’s hard to be a gourmet cook if you live in Glenwood, Iowa. The stores have very basic produce, they never have fresh herbs and they only have one type of fish at a time, if they have any at all. They’ve never had an eggplant in the 13 years I‘ve lived here & when I asked, they didn’t even know what eggplant was.
Yesterday I decided to make my home cooked meal & thought I'd try something out of the ‘On Cooking’ book from class. I picked a very simple recipe w/ very simple ingredients, Steamed Salmon w/ Lemon and Olive Oil. It also seemed pretty healthy, which is how I normally eat. I checked my freezer for Salmon, which I always have, but was out today. So I crossed my fingers that Salmon would be the fish of choice today at the store. It usually is. Not today. Only Catfish. Are you kidding me? I never use catfish. Any seafood but catfish.

So I called Fletch(my husband) & had him find me a Catfish recipe out of the book & tell me the ingredients. The store didn’t have Leeks for my Salmon recipe anyway.
I decided on the ‘Oven-Fried Pecan Catfish’ on pg. 607. I don’t usually do fried foods, but this was an oven dish, so really it was baked. Plus, besides the Catfish, I had all the ingredients at home; dijon mustard, milk and pecans. For sides, I decided to make Brussels Sprouts in Pecan Butter, on pg.736, and Maple-Glazed Carrots, on pg.754.

I got all my Mise en Place set up for each recipe. Except for the Brussels Sprouts, I had to cut the recipes way down because I wasn’t about to make 4lbs of Carrots or 12 Catfish Filets for 2 people.

I peeled & cut a 1/2 lb. of carrots into rondelles. I chopped some fresh parsley and got the butter, maple syrup and s & p ready.

I trimmed & marked X’s in the bottoms of 1lb of Brussels Sprouts and got my chopped pecans, butter and s & p ready.

I started boiling water for the Carrots & Sprouts while I got things ready for the Catfish. I ground the pecans, laid those out on parchment paper, and mixed the milk & dijon. I dredged the catfish thru the dijon mix, scraping off the excess. Then I rolled them in the ground pecans & put them on a lightly oiled baking sheet and into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes.

While the catfish was in the oven I boiled the Sprouts for 10 min. & parboiled the carrots for 3 min. I strained the carrots & put them in an ice bath for a minute. Then I sautéed the carrots until slightly tender, threw in some s & p, added the maple syrup and left on low.

I strained the Sprouts. It said to heat the butter in a sauté pan until 'noisette'. By definition that is “a small, usually round, portion of meat cut from the rib”. What? I ignored it & just heated butter as usual. I added the pecans to the butter for a minute or 2, then I tossed in the Sprouts. I let it set on low while I garnished the carrots w/ fresh parsley.

I checked the Catfish & it flaked easily, so I pulled them out. I served dinner w/ a Pinot Grigio.

The Carrots and Brussels Sprouts were awesome. I’ve tried glazing carrots before using brown sugar and it never worked that well. I’ve also never had much luck w/ Brussels Sprouts but I think making the X’s in them helped make them more tender. I think I'd try less butter next time because I try to healthy & there was more than enough butter & pecans. The Catfish was good, but I think next time I would try spreading the Dijon mixture on w/ a brush. It said to scrape off the excess but I still think there was too much. I think the pecans soaked up the excess & when I baked it, it never got that good crunchy coat. And I would make 1 filet & split it. They were huge filets & we don’t eat that much. We will have leftovers for lunch today though.

I also kept up on the clean-up. Fletch said the kitchen stayed remarkably clean. Not usually a trait of mine. But with all the Mise en Place, things went much smoother.

It was also probably a good thing the store had no Salmon, or any other fish I’m used to making. It forced me to try something different, even though I still prefer Salmon over Catfish any day. I also learned that it’s Brussels (w/ an ‘s’) Sprouts, not Brussel Sprouts.

And Fletch, who specializes in concert photography, says he doesn't like photographing food. He just may come to like it after this awesome photo of Brussels Sprouts.