Orange Halibut with Pommes Duchesse

Today: shopping with good intentions! I printed out the Greenpeace list of endangered fish species because I finally wanted to go shopping as a mature and enlightened consumer. Yes, and not always have to rely on the small part of the assortment that has the “organic” label on it!

So I stood in front of the fish stand at the market and nested the multiple folded paper pile out of my backpack. “What’ll it be young man?” Um, well, I discover in the display redfish (forbidden!), pollock (from the Atlantic, was it now allowed? Must check right away), 2 trout (allowed, but I don’t want), salmon (what was that about? Atlantic or Pacific?) and halibut (never read about, is it on the list?). Also 2 already sadder scallops than usual, I guess the season is over….

And seaweed! Brilliant, it buys me time! “Of the seaweed there, a handful!” The seller is busy and I can look unobserved at my suspicious leaflet. Pollock does not go, not the one lying here. I don’t like it much anyway, except in fish’n’chips. Salmon again? Gabs but only Good Friday! Well, I’ll have a look at the Heilb… “Anything else?” - “Uh, yeah, fish…” Hastily I skim the pages in the brochure. Blue with red text was better than red with blue text? And where’s the halibut? It’s apparently not on it. Is probably also rather a rare fish, I have never seen here. “The halibut is really great today, we don’t get such good stuff that often,” says the dealer. Oh, well then, so “Where does it come from?” asks the mature consumer. “From Greenland.” - “Aha. Well then give me some of it, about 300 grams”. … Hello Greenpeace, are you reading this? With all my love, I was completely overwhelmed! And now I have bought red fish and I am responsible for the extinction of halibut! Well, it’s too late and at least the fish shall not have died in vain.

Later:

I make pommes duchesse as a side dish. I put

• 500 g potatoes

on the heat and let them cook as jacket potatoes. In the meantime I clean

• 500 g spinach.

Then it goes on with the noble earth tubers. I peel them, mash them with a potato masher and add them lukewarm to

• 1 good tablespoon of finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon of cream
• 1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped
• a little nutmeg
• good salt

in a bowl and mix everything. Then off into the piping bag and sprayed on a baking paper about 35 potato macaroons. Later I dab them with

• 1 egg yolk, whisked with a little water.

Now I fillet

• 1 orange.

The fruit later goes into the spinach, the squeezed juice is added together with

• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons white wine salt
• 1 teaspoon of crushed dried orange peel
• 2-3 pinches of piment d’Espelette
• 100 g butter, melted and skimmed

a small hollandaise sauce. I stir this in a water bath, while the potatoes now go into the preheated oven (180°) and cook in 15-20 minutes. Finally, briefly turn on the grill.

Now the spinach comes dripping wet into the pot with some olive oil and steams soft. Add a little salt and, just before the end, the finely chopped orange fillets.

“Sauté until very hot,” the fishmonger said, so that’s what I do.

• 350 g halibut fillet

I cut after washing and drying in 4 rectangular pieces and fry them in

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon clarified butter

on high heat for 2 minutes on each side. Then the fillets go on the plates, a little hazelnut pesto (leftovers from here) on top and under the potato tray in the oven until the plates are warm. Meanwhile, I can drain the spinach and add it to the plates as well. Add to that a few of the duchess potatoes, now nicely browned but still soft on the inside, and spread a bit of hollandaise. After the obligatory photo, add lots and lots more duchess potatoes to the plate, along with some neat sauce. It goes perfectly with its subtle orange flavor to the fried fish with the pesto, and is found in color in the potatoes and the orange pieces in the spinach.

Excellent, I am only a little guilty about the halibut. This is definitely a candidate for our fish dinner in May, then I’ll just get the Pacific variety, you’re allowed to eat those.

Addendum - Greenpeace was faster than me. On 27.3. there was the new list, in which at least the action recommendation is now clearer. I still had the one from November. Nevertheless, I have now made myself a simple list, so that I next time, as a mature and enlightened consumer …

sauteed halibut, duchess potato rosettes, orange fillets and spinach