Mahimahi

A couple weeks ago I started to get more adventurous with our cooking once the dust had settled on our life. I looked thought the binder of recipes I have saved from magazine and picked on that caught my eye, Pink Peppercorn Mahimahi with Tropical Salsa from Cooking Light. With a title like that, it left us one option of where to shop, Central Market. Several ingredient were hard to find as expected and some were a surprise. The pink peppercorns were not among the usual array of spices but Brian came to the rescue and checked out the bulk items section. He found the peppercorns and we were shocked at the price. $34.00 a pound but luckily we only needed a few ounces. What was harder to find was fresh pineapple so we settled for canned. Central market did not have lime juice or coconut milk.

I headed to H-E-B the next day to pick them up. The lime juice was easy to find in the fruit section as expected. The coconut milk was still alluding me until I called in my reinforcement, my mom. She knows were anything is in any grocery store and I usually call her once a week. She suggested checking the aisle with other Asian flavors and there it was. I returned home ready to make the dish.

The recipe suggested making the salsa first but I opted to make the coating for the fish first and then make the salsa while the fish was cooking. We would also be paring the fish with broccoflower we picked up from the market.


First I crushed the peppercorns with a mortal and pestle and then mixed it with other ingredients for the breading; panko bread crumbs and chopped macadamia nuts, which I used our mini Cuisinart. Then I needed to mix the ingredients for the liquid that I would soak the fish in and then place it in the breading. I measured out the soy sauce and then opened the coconut milk only to find I had purchased coconut cream instead of milk. It was a solid paste. So after a few choice words, I tried diluting it with regular milk. I whisked the milk with the coconut cream and it was too solid so I added a second addition of milk and got the texture I wanted. I mixed together the soy sauce and coconut milk and then set up the breading process.
I dipped one side of the fish into the liquid and then placed in the breading I then placed the fish crust side down into a pan and cooked it for three minutes which gave it a nice brown color then I cooked it in the oven for 10 minutes to finish the cooking process.

While they were cooking I chopped up the broccoflower and began steaming. Next I made the salsa. I only had 8 minutes to chop the pineapple , red onion, cilantro, and jalapeno. I then need to mix in the coconut, line juice and pink peppercorns. The recipe was right I should have made the salsa before I did anything else. It turns out I did well under the gun and was able to finish just as the fish was done. If I had not had a time limit I think i would have taken me 20 minutes.



The dish turned out great and I got Brian's highest complement, "it is a definite make again!"