Fish Hash

 

What fish hash looks like when I accidentally make it

Sounds awful, doesn’t it? No worries. This is not a recipe for fish hash, at least not in the usual sense. But it is about cooking fish and lessons learned.

My mom was a wonderful cook—except when it came to fish. A child of the landlocked Midwest, she loved seafood and fish, but my Canadian father retained enough of the Brit about him that he wanted a roast of beef or leg of lamb with potatoes. That’s what she cooked. The only fish I remember her cooking was halibut which she poached in milk—you’re right, it’s not my best memory of Mom’s cooking.

I inherited Mom’s taste for fish. We had neighbors who became my adopted aunt and uncle and used to take me to their country club for dinner. Invariably I ordered fish, and she, a devout Catholic, said, “Oh, honey, you don’t have to do that. It’s not Friday.”

So here I am, master of my own kitchen for some sixty years, and I’m still tentative about fish. This does not include canned tuna and salmon, which I fix in a variety of ways all the time. And it does not include salmon that Christian does a masterful job of grilling.

But, fish. Recently I followed a recipe for baked cod. It met with medium success.

Baked cod

I’ve had more luck with sole, which to me is the most delicate, most succulent fish—and it’s reasonably priced. Delicate not only in taste but also in texture—and therein lies the problem. Despite following directions to the letter, sole falls apart in the skillet when I try to sauté it, and we end with fish hash—wonderful flavor, but no eye appeal. And food, Mom always said, is half eaten with the eye. Jordan chose sautéed fish for its crust over the crustless baked, which is easier to do but not as delicious. 

The other night, though, I had medium success sautéing filet of sole. Here’s what I did.

Sautéed filet of sole

1.5 lbs. sole

Butter

Salt and pepper

Flour

White wine

Lemon

Salt and pepper filets to taste. Lightly flour (shake a little flour on them and gently rub it in with your fingers). Here’s the trick: I had been cooking fish on medium low (275)  on my hot plate, because the induction hot plate heats quick and fast. This time I put it on medium (375) and the fish held together better. If you don’t have one, quick get a fish spatula—makes all the difference.

I had to do the fish in two separate batches, which presented a warming problem—if I use hot plate and toaster oven at the same time, I trip a circuit breaker. So I warmed the oven, then sauteed the fish, and kept the first batch in the still-warm toaster oven.

When the fish was all sautéed (and some of it will still be hash) and in the oven, I poured a glug of white wine in the skillet (glug is, I think, Sam Sifton’s measurement from the New York Times cooking columns—the true definition is the gurgling sound liquid makes when poured, which tells you nothing about measurement). I’d say a Tbsp. or two of wine, enough to loosen and scrape up the crusty bits from the skillet. Add a good squeeze of lemon and a dollop or two of butter (you can see how precise this is) and let it all make a sauce. Pour over the fish and serve—and just forget to mention the word hash.

Even the teenager at our house ate this, and Jordan and I enjoyed it the next day for lunch. I will confess we had salmon two days later, and they had just returned from New Orleans where they ate lots of seafood and fish, so the plea was, “No more fish for a while.”

But that sole sure was good.