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Lavender Roasted Flounder with Garlic Chives and Tomato Brown Butter

Posted on | April 8, 2009 | 6 Comments

Inspiration. From where does it come? It’s a topic I talk little about, but perhaps should explore further, for it is inspiration that really drives, for me, the what, where, when, how and why of cooking. The Web is abuzz these days with talk of no recipes, short recipes, twecipes and the like, yet for all our sharing of notes in the hallways of the food-o-sphere, it is inspiration that drives us to create – whether the words, lists and step-by-step directions are present or not. And inspiration is deeply personal.

With food, thankfully, inspiration often takes the convenient form of hunger. We need food and crave sustenance; those cravings come from mysterious places. Often times they are base; we crave salt, sweet, acid. Or, they are more complex; we crave memory, comfort, adventure. Whatever the reasons, the simple fact of the matter is that for those of us who feed ourselves, and do it in our own kitchens regularly, we require, we demand, inspiration in order to keep our food interesting. For when we lose inspiration – or don’t know where to find it – we lose interest in food, in the act of creating the valuable, familial experience at the table. It is, however, at the point of pondering creation, of listening to our animal needs for food, that most people flinch; they reach for fast or processed foods and claim “I just don’t have the time.”  And this is a sad moment. As we see, more and more each day, our national food health – our culture of collective food tradition – is poor. And for all the ratings booms for food t.v., the proliferation of food blogs, nutritional advice, diet fads and health books, the bitter truth matter is that we, as a country, as a species, need to take more interest in our food – where it comes from and how it’s treated. We need to be inspired to create deeply personal experiences that serve the dual purposes of feeding us and establishing something deeply lasting and binding. The creative and wondrous depths of our minds, the capacity for creative vision, after all, is what separates us from animals eating merely to survive.

My quest for sustenance suffers from the unfortunate affliction of requiring that inspiration is a near permanent fixture of food creation. I use the word “unfortunate” because I often have to work hard not to impose this search for deeper meaning upon those who just want to join me for a meal and a few laughs. I try to tell these people that the meal is the source, the base element, woven into the social DNA of a good meal and a few laughs, but I don’t overdo it.  I keep my search for inspiration mostly personal, and I find a great deal of it’s secrets rooted in pictures, images, art, photography. I scan the recipe books, magazines and blogs, of course, but I also find inspiration in design and news magazines, in scientific Web sites and travel journals.  I look for images that capture me in some personal way, and then set out to create a dish that recreates that personal moment using whatever food is on fresh and on hand.

Such was the case two weeks ago, when, waiting for a friend on a cold, early spring day, I ducked into a supermarket to page through the food magazines. There, toward the end of one of the mags – I can’t remember which – was a picture of a beautiful white fish, covered in green herbs and topped with scrummy-looking cooked tomatoes. I quickly jotted it down in my notebook – white fish, green herbs, red tomatoes with butter. I didn’t have time to take down the recipe, and wouldn’t have had time been in abundance.

And there’s the rub: I create without recipes not as a crusade against them, but rather, for the sole reason that this personal, somewhat free-form method of cooking inspires me to continuously feed myself and others in new and interesting ways without feeling confined. And don’t get me wrong, I am a novice cook. I used recipes for years to practice, to learn new methods and how to work with new ingredients. I still do, especially with baking. I simply have found that most of what is contained on a given page doesn’t always translate to the table in my own image. In many ways – most ways, I suppose – that’s what Recipe Play is about; playing with your food, toying with convention, finding inspiration in a photo, or behind the glass case at your market, in the dish served at a neighborhood joint that you wish were just a little different.

So it was with this fish. I had colors and ingredients, but no idea really where to start. It wasn’t grilled, that much I knew – though I suppose it could have been. I remember that it looked roasted. The herbs were bright green and looked like tarragon. Again, I can’t be quite so sure. The tomatoes? Definitely cooked in brown butter until they’d split.

What to do next? I started with the fish, which I sourced at Whole Foods. As I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy their Whole Catch line of seafood and the store’s approach to sustainability in our oceans. As anyone will tell you, sustainable seafood is one of the most elusive topics in the sustainable food world. There are no simple answers, and so I do the best I’m able, finding that Whole Foods does quite a lot for me at the outset to ensure I’m buying and eating responsibly. The fish is affordable and has always, without fail, tasted nearly as good as fresh. With today’s freezing and shipping methods, it’s probably about as close as one can get to fresh anyway. Using my handy Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Guide, I chose Flounder. It was on the list as a “good option” for my region, and so I plucked up a bag – a meal for two – for 8 bucks and headed off to the farm market.

One stall I frequent was selling garlic chives, which, when I can find them, I buy without fail. They have slight vegetale taste; grassy and sweet, but then the finish is all garlic. They are phenomenal. So I had my green herb for the fish. The tomatoes – beautiful, sweet little cherries – came in the weekly haul from Washington’s Green Grocer. I was set.

First, I dealt with the tomatoes. I washed them and set them aside – no need to cut them. Then, I added a quarter stick of butter to the pan, set it to medium high, and cooked it just to the point of bubbling. Then, I tossed the tomatoes in, gave them a quick few turns, and covered the mixture with a lid for about 10 minutes.

I washed the fish in lemon water, a method that I find removes any unwanted flavors and also ads a subtle and welcome hint of citrus. I then thought back to the picture; the deep spring green of the herbs, the pure white of the fish, and the golden red of the brown butter tomatoes. In my mind, it was all color. The image, quite simply, reminded me of flowers. So, where to go to complete this floral arrangement.

I removed some lavender from my spice rack to provide that needed element and complete the floral scene. I added about a teaspoon to the mortar and pestle. On top of that I added a pinch of salt and black better and then ground the mixture up to a fine lavender-based powder.

Next, I dried the fish and patted the lavender spice mixture into into it, setting it aside for the moment. I chopped the garlic chives in strips about as long as the last knuckle of my index finger. Then, I poured a bit of olive oil into the the bowl, added the fish, and tossed with the herbs so they would acquaint themselves nicely with the exteriror of each piece.

I then placed the fish in a shallow baking dish covered with foil and added to a 375 degree oven. Now, my oven is a terrible creature. An apartment flippers chop-shop baseline brand. You know, the one that looks like an oven more than it acts like one? So, when I say I cooked the fish for 7 minutes, please believe that it will have no bearing on your own cooking time. Flounder goes quickly, and, as such, dries out quickly if left too long in the oven, or unattended in a hot pan. Cook it towards the end of your meal prep and serve straightaway after it comes out of the oven. It will be warm and flaky and all sorts of lovely in just under the time it takes to boil a pot of water.

While the fish was cooking away, I turned up the heat on the tomatoes and removed the lid. The butter was starting to brown nicely and the tomatoes had split and added their sweet juice to the pan. I added a glug of chicken stock and a shot of white wine and deglazed the pan, which created a nice amount of brown butter sauce to spoon over the fish. As this bubbled away, I removed the fish, plated and and poured the tomato butter sauce over the dish.

And voila, a picture comes to life. This is the essence of cooking for me. It is why I preach the merits of learning to cook, of learning to enjoy yourself in the kitchen and at the table with friends and family without feeling the pressure so often implied in recipes.

I say it now as I’ve said before: This is our food, people, spend some time with it, befriend it, and take the chance to learn how to make food personal to you, to find inspiration in your kitchen and on your plate; to make it worth your while.

W

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