Tuesday, August 19, 2008

There's something fishy about this...

It's called, cooking fish you don't know about. One of my favorite things to cook is fish en papillote. It's a really easy and tasty way to cook fish, consisting of putting a fillet in a piece of parchment paper (or tinfoil if you're cheap like me) with vegetables, spices... pretty much anything you want. You cook it for about 10 min on 400 deg F, and the fish cooks in its own juices and the spices you include. It's best with a light, delicate fish like tilapia or sole.

I realized the other day that I don't really eat fish here unless it's fried, so I decided today that I would make a quick easy papillote dinner tonight. Only, its been about a half hour. I'm currently sitting on the broken chair in my kitchen (the one where you fall through the seat if you slide around too much) staring at my oven. For starters, tilapia and sole are unknown in Britain. They must be farmed mostly in the States, or more warm-watered fish. The best I could do is get a loin of haddock. I'm sure I've eaten haddock before, but I've never cooked it - so I don't know what "done" looks like. After the first 10 minutes, the fillet still looked like jelly, so I stuck it back in for another 5. I also consulted www.onlineconversion.com to find out that 400 deg F is 200 deg C - something I should have probably discovered before I started cooking. (Nevermind that the cooking instructions on the fish wrapping said 180 deg C)

I last checked about 10 minutes ago, and I was peeved about this whole situation. But then I thought to myself, man, Danielle, you've had it EASY lately. Things are going WELL. You should stop having a WHINGE because guess what, you live in a foreign country. Just because they speak English doesn't make them American, and doesn't make this automatically your HOME.

Right.

So, carrying on with this bloody fish, and hopefully I don't die of food poisoning when I finally deem it done.

1 comment:

  1. tilapia!! mmm.

    and its tinfoil all the way.

    and it does look like you buzzed your head in that pic. i was scared.

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