...so in a moment of possible insanity, I bought halibut, priced at $51.98/lb.

M

marilynfl

Moderator
Yep, no typo there. The halibut was pre-portioned at 5 oz each and so I paid ~$16 for a piece of fish roughly the size of a deck of cards.

Buying this fish at that price was one of those spontaneous reactions you get when a memory is so visceral all sane thoughts go wait at Starbucks while the rest of the brain stands there and acts stupid.

Years ago L & I spent 3 weeks on Vancouver Island and I feasted on either fresh halibut or fresh cod every single day. Every day. One might think I lost weight during those 3 weeks, but one would be wrong. Because in addition to the halibut or cod, I was also eating 3" squares of Nanaimo bars every single day. Every day. For those uninitiated into the concept of Nanaimos, they are the dessert equivalent of Dante's Seven Circles of Hell, but in a good way. Three layers of ingredients, each able to stand alone, but in which the sum is greater than its individual layers.

I'm going to prepare the halibut with a simple olive oil/lemon/caper/olive baked treatment. I'll let you know how it goes. I will NOT be making Nanaimo bars.

 
Yep it's on sale here right now. Still out of my reach. We get it fresh-caught that morning and it is such a temptation. You are going to be eating it for a while, so:

I like it grilled with basil pesto (a successful attempt when we were trying to eat more fish) and with chermoula sauce spooned over.

As for the Nanaimo bars, I keep passing them (and it is a struggle to keep on walking) in the supermarkets and have never seen them marketed as.... Dante’s Seven Circles of Hell. Odd.....

 
That's a LOT. NOt for me. Other fish are good too. BUT it is an expensive piece of finnery here also but more like $30/lb.

We ate a lot of fresh grouper last week which EVEN at the coast was $22-28 /lb. AND SO delicious. We could beg nice thick steaks rather than the thin fillets we ususally see in the supermarket counter.

Grouper and snapper are my favorite fish. I love halibut also but it is really hard to come by. And salmon, of course, for every day. We also had trigger fish at the beach which is always wonderful.

I am not a fan of flounder or sole or that type of fish, preferring a more "steak" fish. I even like blue fish and mackerel.

 
Roasted Halibut (adapted from NYTimes recipe, although it's just ingredients)

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Spread some oil on a baking dish (I wouldn't use glass with this high of a temperature, based on my personally cracking a pie plate once for this reason. This time I used a small metal dish.) Enough oil for fish to sit on so it doesn't stick.

Recipe calls for 1.5 lbs of halibut. Since I was unwilling to sell off a kidney to prepare that much, I simply used the single $16 5-oz piece I had bought.

Drizzle olive oil on fillet, sprinkle Aleppo pepper flakes and salt, cover with slices of lemon and a branch of rosemary. Add olives (I also added capers) around and on the fish. Bake 10-15 minutes, until fish flakes.

It was very nice, mild with just a hint of spiciness due to the Aleppo pepper. I would have liked a bit more moisture in the condiments--while the olives (I used Castelvetrano) and capers provided a nice hit of saltiness, I would have liked just a bit of sauce--maybe some wine? Several comments said to add lots more olive oil...maybe that was making a bit of sauce? I don't know. Comments said this works well with Cod--that's my usual go-to fish and one I would be prepared to make for others. I like my neighbors...I just not prepared to spend $52/lb on halibut for them.

 
Good gawd woman that’s crazy pricing! And for halibut, which isn’t a premium fish here on the west coast. (Though maybe it is now.) Not long ago I stared at salmon lovingly in the store remembering how nice it was went dad would just take out the boat and come home with them. (So different than Atlantic salmon.)

Free salmon. I didn’t know how spoiled I was.

 
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