Foodie Friday – Baked Opah with Lemon Dill Butter


I’m am not a cook, chef, baker or any sort of kitchenteer. So when I make a meal from scratch with no recipe that is editable and tasty; I’ve got to share!

We currently live in paradise and I’m trying hard to embrace it while we still live here. Which means embracing the local cuisine. I started picking up random local foods at the grocery store to try at home. Which made it a little complicated cooking it since sometimes I didn’t even know what I had picked up!

Case in point- Two weeks ago I picked up some local fish at the store. I had never heard of the fish and had no idea how to prepare it and had never cooked fish in my life (wait…does fish sticks count?). Even more, Hubs hates fish. He hates that fishy taste. He is your typical chicken, steak and potatoes kind of guy. So I was also pretty sure no matter how magnificent I could make that fish taste, just the fact it was fish, he wouldn’t like it (even if I could convince him to taste it). But I’m not your steak and potatoes kind of girl. I love trying new foods and am so tired of grilled chicken. I will barf next time we have it.

I bring home the fish. Now what? I have to find out what kind of fish it even is. I discovered Opah or Moonfish, is a mild buttery white fish. Ok, so I figured out what I bought. So how do I cook it? No idea! Google did not yield much. My other go to is allrecipes which had none! I started to panic a little. But I had to pull it all together because he can smell fear and if Hubs smelled fear, I knew he would be afraid to try the fish. So I quickly adapted and overcame.

Here is a quick and SUPER EASY recipe to bake Opah-

20130809-191833.jpg

1/2 cup white cooking wine

rosemary

Italian Seasoning

salt

mixed pepper

2 tablespoons lemon juice

extra virgin olive oil

2 whole lemons

Preheat oven to 210 degrees. You want to bake fish longer at a lower temperature to avoid drying it out. I first take the fish steaks and rub them down with the olive oil. I then sprinkle salt and pepper on them. Next, I mix the cooking wine, salt, pepper, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, Italian seasoning and rosemary (sorry, I didn’t measure some). Mixed it in a bowl and used a rubber basting brush and brushed it on.

Next, I heated up a frying pan on medium heat. Once hot, I then seared the fish steak. I had no idea how to sear, so I had to look it up.

(Here is a quick how-to sear)

Lastly, I cut up the whole lemons. I layer one on the bottom and add a few shakes of the salt and pepper. Then place my fish steaks and finally cut up and layer the other lemon on the top of the fish. I bake it at 210 degrees until the fish flakes easily; probably about 20 min. The great thing about this fish is we eat it a lot here being rare or only seared. So you really cant go wrong with not cooking it long enough. Just watch that it doesn’t get to dry.

As for the lemon dill butter-

lemon juice

butter

dill

Melt the butter, mix in the lemon juice and dill. Bam. Baste it over the fish once you have plated. Hubs doesn’t even use the butter sauce, but I love it all!

 

20130809-191856.jpg

Leave a comment