Fish With Orange, Cloves and Ginger
- Cuisine: Other
- Course: Main Course
- Features: Fast, Kid-Friendly
Summary:
This simple fish dish, with its clean sweetness, comes from Norway's Andreas Viestad, a bright, personable young star in the global chef firmament. His "New Scandinavian Cooking" series has been televised in more than 50 countries, including a run here on WHUT.
For his second English-language cookbook, Viestad journeyed to 11 countries around the Indian Ocean, creating his own culinary map by collecting recipes and food stories. "Ever since I started traveling in the region 15 years ago, I have been fascinated by how a curry in Thailand somehow resembles one in Oman, and a dessert in Indonesia can resemble one in Mauritius," he told us last week in between chores at his farm in southern Norway. "And I have come to see the various cuisines as different but comprehensible dialects within one large language. What holds it all together is the spices."
This recipe is based on a dish he had in Zanzibar's Stone Town, where he works for part of the year as a chef consultant for Emerson's Spice Hotel. Ground and whole cloves inform the fish and its sauce; the spice is the island's most important industry, Viestad says. Depending on how finely the onion is minced, the sauce can be thin or a little chunky, like a cooked salsa.
Serve the fish with rice pilaf or sauteed spinach that's been blessed with some spice of its own, such as nutmeg. Viestad uses this sauce recipe for salmon, too.
4 servings
Ingredients:
- 4 8-ounce white-fleshed fish fillets, such as halibut or pompano, skin-on or skinless (32 ounces total)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, plus 2 to 3 whole cloves
- 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest, plus more to taste
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 to 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons canola oil, plus more for pan-frying
- 1 small onion, finely minced (about 1 cup)
- 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger root, or more to taste
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch (optional)
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (optional)
Directions:
Wash the fillets and pat dry with paper towels. Season on both sides with the ground ginger, ground cloves, half of the orange zest, and salt and pepper to taste; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, heat a small amount of the oil over medium heat and cook the onion for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until it has softened. Add the orange juice, fresh ginger, whole cloves, 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar and the remaining orange zest, or more to taste, stirring to mix well. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil; cook for about 10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Reduce the heat to low; keep it warm while you cook the fish.
Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fillets and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until golden brown; carefully flip them over and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. (To test for doneness without ruining the appearance of the fish, stick a fork into the thickest part of 1 fillet and hold it there for 10 seconds. The fork should come out warm. Or use an instant-read thermometer; the fish should register 160 degrees.) Divide the fillets among individual plates and cover loosely to keep warm.
Just before serving, increase the heat under the sauce to medium-high and bring it to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. For a thicker sauce, if desired, whisk in a pinch of cornstarch and boil for 1 minute. For a richer sauce, if desired, whisk in 1 tablespoon of butter. Discard the whole cloves, if desired. Pour the sauce over the fillets. Serve immediately.
Recipe Source:
Adapted from Viestad's "Where Flavor Was Born: Recipes and Culinary Spices Along the Indian Ocean Spice Route" (Chronicle, 2007).
E-mail the Food Section with recipe questions.
(Mette Randem)
