Easy, mostly healthy fish

My wife and I love fish, and it's a healthy protein, but I struggle greatly to find ways to get my 12-year-old to enjoy it. She briefly was into pan-seared steelhead trout with udon, but it didn't last, so I keep trying new preparations.

My latest attempt was a riff on roasting it in foil with butter, garlic, and lemon. For once I mostly followed this, with the exception of leaving the skin on (my wife and I love crispy skin on top, but the kid? Not here for it.), grating the zest of that half a lemon on top in addition to the juice, using jarred, not fresh, herbs (I use Fairway's Herbs for Fish blend, but I'm not sure they still sell it, as it's not on Instacart), and opening the foil and broiling it for a few minutes at the end. (Crispy skin! Plus the zest caramelizes. Yum.) In future I'd broil it a few minutes sooner, as the juice prevents the skin from crisping quickly. This is one instance when I really could have used a torch or Searzall.

I served it with greens sautéed in olive oil with garlic and lemon (no pine nuts or raisins this time) for one of the healthier dinners we've had while isolating. Sadly, my daughter wasn't a big fan of this one either, but the grownups both thought it was delicious. Wine recs here? You can basically never go wrong with NZ Sauv Blanc or South African Chenin Blanc with fish, butter, and lemon, and there are lots of good values there. I could also go with Finger Lakes or Alsatian Gewürztraminer, which is just fun to say. In the Finger Lakes Hermann Wiemer, Sheldrake Point, Glenora, and Dr. Konstantin Frank are all good bets. Grüner Veltliner would be another great choice, either again from Wiemer or Dr. Frank or from its native Austria. (Also, try Slope Cellars.)

 

Finally, since I realized I used to talk about the science of food, and my recent posts have not, I'll make a brief discourse on the browning and crisping of food. Food browns in two ways, enzymatically, which is generally undesirable, and is what happens to apples and pears for example once they're cut and exposed to the air. Yuck.

The browning we like is heat-related, and in the case of proteins like meat and fish, goes by the specific name of "Maillard" reactions, for a French (duh!) chemist of that name. Maillard reaction occur between proteins and sugars, as opposed to caramelization, which involves only sugars. Maillard reactions are what make for such culinary delights as the seared crust on meat and fish, brown butter, créme caramel, and, maybe less obviously, toasted bread. I also learned recently that toasting flour is a thing, not just for roux, but also for baking, adding nuttiness and making raw dough safer to eat! Maillard reactions are a gift that keeps giving.

Important things to note: Maillard reactions only occur above 285ºF, meaning reasonably high heat and less in hydrous (water) and less yet in acidic (see lemon juice above) solutions. Chemistry 101 lesson: if a reaction's product, in this case water, is already in abundance, equilibrium tends away from the reaction happening  Conversely, if the reactant concentration is high, which here are alkaline amino groups in an alkaline environment, the equilibrium direction is more reaction, hence more browning. This is why you want your proteins dry before searing them.