This is from 2008. If you have trouble with the link, try going to the original post.
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Here’s the deal with fish at our house:
- Some time ago I put my foot down and said, darn it, I’ll cook fish once a week, but it has to be good fish. Fish from a reputable fish counter, where we can ask whether it’s been frozen or not and when it was caught and whether it was wild-caught or farmed and whether it is being sustainably managed or not.
- We shop on Saturday, but we want to eat fish on Friday. A day when my fridge and pantry is especially empty; a day too long past shopping day to keep fresh fish.
- The cheap grocery store where we shop on Saturday doesn’t carry especially good fish anyway.
- Therefore, the plan is for Mark to pick up some fish on his way home from work on Friday, either at the co-op or at the expensive grocery store (motto: “Costs a lot more, but WE have baggers”).
- But! These places have different fish for sale each week! And at different, unpredictable prices! And you don’t really know what you want to buy till you get there and are standing in front of actual fillets and steaks!
- It’s me, not Mark, who carries an extensive many-branched decision tree of recipes in my head. He is a smart guy; he knows that if he’s coming home with fresh fish, buying a baguette, some salad greens, and a couple of lemons is a satisfactory solution. A safe solution. An engineering solution. Works for any fish. But if we’re going to do this every week, we’ll get bored with lemon fish/bread/salad.
- Enter The Fish Buying Decision Tree. (Download fish_on_the_way_home.doc)
With this document, printed out, slipped in a page protector, and kept in the glove compartment or bike bag, Mark can bring home useful additional stuff that, with the fish, I can turn into dinner.
Caveats: The document is written for my family, not yours. The combinations are not guaranteed to please you. Also, it assumes the presence of certain pantry staples: canned broth, herbs and spices, soy sauce, wine, onions.
Finally, the document doesn’t actually contain any recipes. If you want to try reconstructing them, try Google, possibly including the search term “Mark Bittman,” who wrote the three cookbooks I drew on most heavily to construct the chart.
Of course, everyone should have a couple of fish recipes that rely on tinned fish for those days when stopping on the way home isn’t practical. My quick one is a pasta salad with tuna, mint, tomatoes, and capers; the more involved one is fried salmon patties with succotash and pot greens.
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