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Panko-Crusted Sole, a Dinner in 20 Minutes

17 Oct

Even though I work from home, there are still days when I find it inexplicably difficult to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour.  Of course, you must realize that, having a child who wakes up at negative zero o’clock in the morning, we also have a child who must go to bed quite early in the evening, which means that our reasonable dinner time tends to occur at an hour when the only other people even considering a meal happen to be 80 years-old or, well, babies.

We are not, as you might have guessed, frozen pizza sort of people (and if you are a frozen pizza sort of person, please know that I hold no judgment against you), so when I need to get a meal on the table fast, I tend to look towards foods that are, on a basic level, fast cookers.  Sole, delicate as it is, falls wonderfully into this category.

You may think that because this meal appears to use a great deal of dishes that means it is complicated or fussy.  Not the case.  The majority of the dishes used are plain old dinner plates, which can be rinsed off and dried in seconds flat, or, even easier, simply thrown in the dishwasher.  There is no real measuring involved, and no special tools.  The fish cooks in one pan, and it cooks for quite literally just a minute on each side until it is done.  Cooking frozen fish sticks in an oven takes longer to prepare than this meal, and I guarantee you these sole fillets are about a thousand time better than any frozen fish stick you’ll ever meet.

Most convenient of all, however, is the fact that both kids and adults love this meal.  A crispy fillet of panko-crusted sole, slices of avocado, and carrot sticks is a well-appreciated meal for the 5-and-under set.  For a more adult-centric presentation, I place the sole fillets on a pile of greens, slice up some tomatoes and avocados, then drizzle on a simple vinaigrette (one part balsamic vinegar to two parts olive oil, whisked with a fork until thick and then seasoned with salt and pepper).  We’re sitting at the table in twenty minutes, tops.  The food, fresh and crunchy, disappears even faster.

Panko-Crusted Sole

1 pound thin sole fillets

roughly 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

about 2 cups panko bread crumbs

salt and pepper

olive oil

Set three large dinner plates in a row.  Put the flour on the first plate, and season the flour with a generous amount of salt and pepper.  On the second plate, beat the eggs, and put half of the panko on the third plate.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat (I use a cast iron skillet, but nonstick would also work).  Coat the pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil (slightly more if you are using a very big pan) and heat until it is almost shimmering.  Take a sole fillet, lightly dip it on both sides in the plate of flour, shake off any excess flour, then wet both sides of the fillet in the beaten egg.  Dip both sides of the fillet in the panko, then place the coated filet in the hot pan.  The oil should be hot enough that your sole sizzles when it hits the pan, but you should not see any plumes of smoke.  Repeat with another fillet.  Depending on the size of your pan, you should be able to cook in batches of 2 or 3 fillets at once.  Cook each fillet for 1 minute on each side.  Sole is very delicate and thin, so it needs to cook for hardly any time at all until it is done.  Heat up one tablespoon more oil in between each batch.

If your cooking pan is littered with a lot of panko crumbs, wipe it out with a paper towel in between cooking each batch of fish, before you add more olive oil.  When you have used up most of the panko on the third plate, add the remainder of the panko to the plate and proceed (adding all the panko at once can sometimes cause it to clump after repeated fillet dippings).

When each sole fillet is done cooking, place it on a wire rack until you are ready to serve.

Serve sole with sliced vegetables, or on top of a salad, with lemon wedges for squeezing.

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Balsamic-Glazed Chicken and Zucchini with Grilled Limes

30 Sep

It may seem a little late for a recipe centered around grilling, but summer came so late around here that we’ve been able to keep our grill working well into September.  It’s a good thing we took advantage of that long stretch of dry weather, too, for right now it is raining and I am wearing a scarf.  Over my sweater.  And crying.

But let’s not talk about that.  Let’s instead talk about something that I think everybody needs in their arsenal of quick meals: a fast weeknight dish.  It’s not the most exciting of topics, I know, but maybe pretend you are making this quick meal before you take off to meet some friends for drinks and then go to your favorite bar to see the Hold Steady.  Only that bar has closed down now, and the Hold Steady no longer plays in little bars anyhow, so you might have to see them play some big club with far too many beer-sodden patrons who think they should jump up and down in front of you like the (now departed) keyboardist in the Hold Steady used to do, only when the keyboardist did it it was charming, and when this dude in front of you does it it just blocks your view and makes you a little tired of being violently leaped on every two seconds.

I seem to have veered off course a bit.

So, chicken!  I know that boneless, skinless chicken breasts have a bad reputation, and I completely understand why.  It’s very easy to make something as simple as a chicken breast taste terrible, what with that portion of the chicken being so utterly plain, devoid of fat, and easy to overcook.  The other side of that equation is, it is also fairly easy to make a chicken breast shine, what with its versatility and unrivalled ability to absorb flavor.  With this simple balsamic glaze that requires very little action other than a periodic swipe across the chicken, you can produce a quick chicken dish that is flavorful, fast, and totally satisfying.

The greatest asset of the entire dish, however, lies not in the chicken, but in the grilled limes.

Just a couple of minutes on a hot grill will coax untold amounts of juice out of each lime, and with just a bit of the bright, caramelized fruit squeezed over each serving of chicken, you instantly add a layer of flavor to each bite that will make you wonder how you ever managed to produce such a fantastic meal in such a short amount of time.

Balsamic-Glazed Chicken and Zucchini with Grilled Limes

Hey, lady, why on earth are you giving us a recipe for grilled chicken when it’s no longer grilling season?  Because if you have a grill pan sitting in your kitchen, that grill pan will work just as well as an outside grill.  Good grill pans are available for as little as $19 on Amazon, and I’ve yet to enter a discount kitchen store that hasn’t had at least half a dozen grill pans sitting around looking all well-priced and ready to be taken home.

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large garlic clove, crushed and finely chopped

salt and pepper

4 boneless, skinless, chicken breast halves

2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise into ¼-inch slices

2 limes, sliced in half

In a medium bowl, whisk together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chopped garlic, and salt and pepper to taste.  Add zucchini slices to glaze, toss to combine, and set aside.  The zucchini slices will only have to sit in the glaze for a minute or two.

Heat a grill or grill pan to medium high heat.  Place chicken breasts on grill.  Remove zucchini slices to a plate, and set aside.  Using a heatproof brush, brush a generous amount of the balsamic blaze on the exposed side of each chicken breast.  Cook the first side of the chicken breast for 4-5 minutes (until chicken has dark, visible grill marks), then flip chicken and brush glaze on the cooked side of the chicken.  After 4-5 more minutes, brush chicken with glaze again, flip again, then brush once more.  Cook chicken until done, occasionally brushing with more glaze. Chicken will be done when it reaches an internal temperature of about 160 degrees Fahrenheit.  When poked with a knife, the emitting juices should be clear, not tinged pink or yellow.

While the chicken finishes cooking, add the limes to the grill, cut side down.  Add the zucchini slices to the grill, and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, until zucchini is soft but not mushy, and has visible grill marks on each side.

If you are using a grill pan instead of an outdoor grill and do not have enough room to cook chicken, zucchini, and limes all at once, cook the chicken first (for a total of about 7-10 minutes on each side, depending on how large the chicken breasts are), set aide, and then cook zucchini and limes.

Serve each chicken breast sliced, accompanied by zucchini and half of a grilled lime.  I like to serve the chicken and zucchini on a bed of greens, often with slices of fresh tomato.  When ready to eat, squeeze the juice of the grilled lime over the chicken and vegetables.

Serves 4-6 people.

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Seared Tuna Steaks with Salsa Verde

5 Sep

Sometimes it takes me a while to come around to certain foods.  For years I could not understand the logic behind combining sweet and savory foods, and then one day I ate a salad packed with huge chunks of watermelon tossed with deliciously salty squares of feta cheese and, oh, my lord, life had never been better.

Meats, however, are still a tough sell for me.  I’ve mentioned this before, but I just can’t get behind most meats, and, if I do decide to go near them, I am frequently struck with the terrible notion to instruct whoever is serving me said meat to just burn it, char it—do whatever is needed to make it seem less meaty and tendon-filled.  But then I’ll virtually inhale a plate of sushi and not flinch, which, I know, does not make any sense at all.

But to me, it sort of does.  Whereas rare meat seems, to me, utterly and unmistakably meaty, fish is so much less fishy when eaten either rare or simply raw.  Thus, I have arrived at the logic that, hey, if you just barely cook your fish at all, it’s somehow less meaty and weird.  At least, that’s where I arrive when I approach the cooking of a piece of fish, and, I admit, it’s an end point I’ve reached only after years of eating dry, hardened fish that I either purposely cooked until inedible or instructed others to do for me.  Over a decade ago, in a terrible fit of fear and squeamishness, I actually begged a friend of mine—who is a professional chef, I might add—to please, please char the daylights out of a tuna steak for me, as I was not feeling up to the task of tackling a meat that was left pink and soft.  To her credit, she complied with my request, and, boy, did I ruin that meal for myself.

But years have passed, lessons have been learned, and now, aware of the myriad of ways I have managed to ruin countless meals for both myself and others, I have come around to the very wise notion that, when it comes to cooking fish, less is more.  Tuna steaks, in particular, can go from transcendent to terrible in just a matter of a minute or two, but when done right, the outside perfectly seared and the inside lustrous and bright, it’s tough to understand why anyone would ever want to subject their meal—and themselves—to a fate made deliberately less delicious.  Having become fully aware of this, I have now vowed to conquer a medium-rare steak. (Confession: I am not actually going to do that.)

Seared Tuna Steaks with Salsa Verde

4 tuna steaks, rinsed then patted dry

olive oil, for brushing

freshly ground black pepper

sea salt

Very lightly brush each tuna steak with olive oil, then generously salt and pepper both sides.  On a well-oiled, very hot grill or grill pan, sear tuna steaks for about 1 minute on each side.  Grill should be hot enough to make an audible sizzling noise when tuna steaks are laid on the hot grill.  If you desire a more heavily cooked tuna steak, sear it for up to 1 ½ minutes, but be cautious to not overcook your fish.  It gets dry and rubbery very quickly.

Salsa Verde

½ cup chopped fresh herbs (about 2 ½ large handfuls of whole herbs—I used basil, parsley, and mint)

¼ cup pitted chopped green olives

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

freshly ground black pepper

salt (optional)

To make salsa, combine all ingredients in a small bowl, and toss to combine.  If your olives are particularly salty, you will not need to add much, if any, additional salt to the mix.

To serve tuna, cut each steak, against the grain of the meat, into thin slices.  Top with salsa verde.

Serves 4

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