Baked halibut has always been one of my favorite fish dishes. When I was in college I was a waitress at this hotel restaurant in a small town in Missouri. The highlight of the week was the Seafood Buffet that they would have on Friday nights. It was an all you can eat meal, with the choices of fried shrimp, fried clams, fried fish and hush puppies. The only non-fried food that they served was a very large slab of halibut that had been baked and topped with butter and salt. It was delicious. I could never understand why it wasn’t the first thing to disappear every night.
After working in the restaurant all night I usually smelled like the oil that they fried all of the fish in. It was a smell that you couldn’t wash out of your hair or clothes very easily. I have to say that since then I haven’t really been a fan of fried foods, except for the occasional french fry, of course! That was why I was a little disconcerted to see that this recipe was for halibut to be pan fried in olive oil.

The halibut is dredged in flour and cooked in hot oil for about 5 minutes on each side. In another pan onions are sautéed in olive oil until they turned golden brown. Then parsley, salt, dry white wine and anchovy paste were added. Once this has reduced some the sauce is added to the pan with the halibut and cooked with the fish for a few more minutes.

The sauce had a very light flavor that married well with the fish and in the future, I might make this again, but without the frying. As the other team members can tell you this challenge has broadened all of our cooking horizons, but there are some things that are just hard to get beyond. Oh well, on to my next challenge-Baked Sole! I’m loving that already.