You’re Just Going to Have to Trust Me on This, Volume 1: Fish Pilaf

I’m going to admit up front that there’s just no way to make this dish sound even remotely tempting when you talk about it. I’ve mentioned it to several people and, depending on how well they know me, they’ve made the yuck face with varying degrees of politeness. I asked someone for a wine recommendation recently and his first response was, “Wait – what?!” So I’m going to ask you to take a leap of faith and try this, because it is so very tasty and fish is good for your brain.

According to Wikipedia, “Pilaf….is a dish in which rice is cooked in a seasoned broth.” Spices and vegetables and some kind of protein are often assumed or implied, but by this extremely broad definition even Rice-A-Roni is a pilaf. You’ve probably already eaten Rice-A-Roni at some point and you survived, so this will be a step up from that. Doesn't that inspire a lot of confidence? 

My son is an avowed Fish Hater, but he’ll eat seconds and thirds of this. The original recipe calls for a whole fish and making broth using the head and bones. Nope. My version is pretty streamlined; you can manage this on a weeknight if you have a good relationship with your kitchen timer, since there’s very little hands-on work involved and it only takes an hour from start to finish (yes, I consider this a reasonable amount of time for dinner prep now that we're no longer allowed to buy anything convenient). The entire recipe breaks down into timed increments, so if you need to do one part and then oversee the math homework and do another part and drive someone to swim practice and do another part and deal with the daily reading log and fold a load of laundry so somebody can wear his only green T-shirt at the school Fun Run and do another part and pick someone up from swim practice, you can manage it without ruining dinner and still eat more or less on time. If your weeknights are anything like my weeknights, that is.

About that wine recommendation: After Lewis got over being freaked out by the weird recipe, he picked out a great wine for this. It was on the dry side and just a little bubbly – not champagne bubbly, just a little sparkly. It went really well with the richness of the rice and the creaminess of the pine nuts without overwhelming the fish. Three cheers to Lewis! He also picked out a really wild Lebanese beer with sumac and thyme and mint and such, but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Adapted from The Food and Cooking of the Middle East by Ghillie Basan. And OMG, I just realized she has a ton of other cookbooks and now I want them all! 

Poached Fish with Rice and Pine Nuts

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, peeled and thinly sliced

2 lb any firm-fleshed white fish. We’ve made this with trout and cod and both were very good.

1 bunch parsley

3 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 ¼ cup long-grain rice, rinsed and drained

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Small handful of pine nuts

1 lemon, cut into wedges

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the onions, stirring often, until they turn dark brown. Set aside.

While the onions are cooking, put the parsley in the bottom of a large pot or Dutch oven. Place the fish on top of the parsley, add the bay, cinnamon stick, and peppercorns, then add enough water to cover the fish. Bring a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 5 minutes.

Remove the fish from the pot, break it into bite-sized pieces, and set it aside. Bring the liquid back to a boil and simmer until it’s reduced by about half, which should take 20 minutes or thereabouts. If you’re used a milder-flavored fish, you might want to add a fish bouillon cube or a few splashes of fish sauce (or soy sauce) to give it a little more depth of flavor.

Add the browned onions to the stock and simmer another 10-15 minutes. Strain the stock into a large measuring cup; you should have 2 ½ cups of liquid (add a little water if needed). Return the stock to the pot and add salt and pepper to taste. Return it to a boil, add the rice, cumin, and ground cinnamon and simmer it for 10 minutes.

When the rice has absorbed the stock, take it off the heat, cover the pan with a clean dish towel, and put a lid on it. Let it stand for 10 minutes while you lightly toast the pine nuts.

Put the rice into a serving dish. Mix about half the fish into the rice and sprinkle the rest on the top. Garnish with the pine nuts and lemon wedges.