Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m glad you’re here!
Today is Good Friday and traditionally a day when Christians eat fish. Fish is a symbol of abundance and nourishment in the Bible–think the miracle of the loaves, fishes and feeding of the 5,000, for example. Also, the fish was used as a symbol for Christians to identify one another in ancient times.
It used to be the norm for Christians to eat fish every Friday, but these days fish on Fridays is most often observed on Good Friday, if at all.
As it often happens for me, serendipitous food events have collided to create a perfect storm for the perfect Good Friday meal.
Mr. Stone Stoup was traveling last weekend and came home raving about a pan-seared halibut special he’d had at a restaurant in Seattle. He had few details except that it was pan-seared, juicy and delicious. The next day, my buddy Paul (you may remember him from my last post) requested a recipe for tartar sauce, explaining that fish is only the vehicle for a really awesome tartar sauce, but complaining that store-bought sauces are terrible. I couldn’t agree more.
And yet again: challenge accepted.
Today, I’m featuring pan-seared halibut with steamed vegetables, roast potatoes and hands-down, the best tartar sauce I’ve EVER had.
So let’s start with the recipe for that tartar sauce, shall we? First off, let’s just get this straight: ain’t the mayonnaise good, ain’t no way the tartar sauce is good. So, I started by making the mayo from scratch using pecan oil, which I find to be the tastiest oil for mayo:
Next, I added dill pickle relish, chopped shallots, chopped capers and a little dried parsley:
Mixed it together and friends–this is absolutely DELICIOUS–and I kid you not–it took at most 10 minutes to whip up–including the time it took to make the mayo.
Now, a word of caution: if you like a sweet tartar sauce (and I really, really don’t), this is not the tartar sauce for you. This sauce is creamy, savory, tangy and delicious, but it is NOT sweet.
For the pan-seared halibut, I selected a good, thick center-cut (it was probably 1 1/4″ thick) from my fish guy and brined it for at least an hour. Then I prepared it just like I do my pan-seared salmon and we were treated to a moist, delicious, tender and flavorful mouthful of delicate fish. And when paired with the tangy tartar sauce, it was terrific. I served it with steamed asparagus and red bell peppers and crispy oven-roasted potatoes for a show-stopping feast:
I wish you all a most blessed and peaceful Good Friday, and look forward to our next visit.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
