Shabbat dinner

[cellio]

Friday our congregation had a dinner after (early) services. It's become our tradition to have a dinner for the last Shabbat of the secular year; it started the last time new year's eve fell on a Friday night.

The plan was a catered main dish with people bringing side dishes to share with the people at their tables, but you can't get a caterer for new year's eve. That was fine, though; we had declared that the main dish would be fish (because I'm the committee chair and I feel strongly about the kashrut issues that would arise if we served meat), so I told the person at the synagogue that I would take care of it. She thought that would be too much work; I explained about cooking three-course dinners for 100 people and that took care of it. Yay, SCA experience. :-)

I got huge amounts of undeserved praise for what was a very simple dish. I hadn't really planned on making it generally known that I was cooking, actually, but I failed to clue my rabbi in about that. Oops. People gushed about the fish, beyond the usual bounds of polite thanks. I was pretty surprised. (I also note with amusement that twice now I've said I wanted to serve fish for a big dinner and had people balk because "people don't like fish"; the other time had similar results. And no, I'm not some sort of fish expert.)

Ok, for the curious: spray or oil a pan, lay grouper fillets in pan, top with thinly-sliced white onions, pour a little olive oil over that, apply spices (garlic powder, oregano, black pepper), top with diced tomatoes. Seal with foil, bake at 425. Check after 20 minutes. Because we were cooking for 55, I used canned tomatoes; in the past I've used sliced plum tomatoes instead, in which case you want to add a little liquid, either tomato sauce or white wine. Sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley right before serving.

I specifically chose grouper for this because it's a very durable and forgiving fish. I knew that we were going to have to hold this at low temperature for a couple hours (Shabbat started two hours before dinner), and I know that cooking times can get out of whack when dealing with large quantities and fully-loaded ovens. (I had two layers of fish in each pan and had to bake it for 30 minutes before turning the ovens down to 200 to hold.) You can do stuff like that to grouper; don't try this with cod. It'll disintegrate -- or, if you didn't add enough liquid, dry out.

Comments

[galiana-db.livejournal.com]

Skin side down in the pan, or flesh side down?

(Fish is my one cooking weakness. I've no clue what to do with it.)