The price of hubris

[nonnihil]

Yesterday I noted the absence of my usual drumbeat of failed recipes. Naturally, then, today's dinner was overcooked steelhead under a balsemic reduction, served with the wrong salad and some pesto pasta.

Yeah, I overcooked the fish. Fish and I have serious differences vís-a-vís broiling times. Broiling fish is my personal kryptonite

Comments

[ukelele]

I think nonnihil rather underrates things and I thought my fish was fine, though I see his point about the superiority of the salad he had intended to make.

[roamin_umpire]

Out of curiosity, how many nights a week do you generally cook? (By cook, I mean make something from more-or-less scratch, as opposed to throwing together something mostly pre-made like frozen ravioli.)

[nonnihil]

This is complicated. I am responsible for dinner two out of six weeknights (ukelele's rotating schedule) and one or two weekend days depending on whether we try to go out on a weekend day. I usually try to do something nontrivial for all of those, but occasionally lame out and do something boring.

[dolohov]

Broiling is enough of a pain that I don't do it. Fish, for me, is almost always poached. Of course, that doesn't give me the crispy skin you're probably going for.

Just tossing out some ideas:
I wonder whether having the fish sitting in some kind of liquid would help moderate the temperature and prevent overcooking under the broiler. Alternately, a good brine beforehand might give you enough extra moisture.

If you're using a temperature probe, you can back off on the alert temp, or aim for a thinner part of the meat.

Barring that, play with the initial temperature. I wonder how it affects the cooking rate if the fish is cold going under the broiler, vs. room temperature, or even partly cooked. Part of me says that the skin of cold fish would brown before the meat got up to temp, but then I'm also tempted to say that it'll brown a lot faster if the fish is already hot.

[narya]

I gave up on broiling fish after the second flaming tilapia incident. I've gotten better results using an electric countertop grill (though perhaps I should try the broiler on the new oven).

[ukelele]

"Flaming tilapia incident" should be your LJ name. Or you should start a band.

[narya]

*mad giggles*

I don't know why it's always tilapia...

[dolohov]

George Foreman for the win!

I have to admit, I'm a big fan of mine.