How to Cook Halibut
by Steve Kaimmer
Halibut is a wonderful fish to cook. It has little oil and no
overpowering
flavor of its own. It takes sauces wonderfully, and the only thing you
have to watch out for is to not dry it out during the cooking. The
following
can apply to either steaks (bone-in) or fillets (boneless hunks of
fish).
Halibut get quite large, and you can have a boneless roast 8 to 10
pounds
if you like! In all cases, the fish is done when you can flake it with
a fork.
For any kind of cooking of non-oily fish, a rule of thumb is ten
minutes
per inch of thickness in a hot oven (this means 400 degrees or more).
Most
of my fish pieces are 3/4 to 1 inch thick, so both broiling and
barbequing
follow this time rule fairly well. When you lower the temperature,
things
get interesting and sauces have more time to interact with the flesh.
From
my experience, by lowering the temperature to 325 or so, this increases
the cooking time to 1 1/2 hours.
Baking:
- Put the fish in a baking dish, cover about 2/3 with milk, a small
pat
of
butter on each piece, and bake for 1 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.
- Cook as above, but cover with a can of 'Campbells Mushroom Soup'.
This
is the first way I ever baked halibut and it isn't bad and it is
certainly
easy.
- As above, but cover 2/3 with chicken broth.
- Kids love this breaded, you can even use 'Shake and Bake'. I
rinse
fillets,
dip them in flour, coat them in an egg mixture (I use the yolks and
whites),
roll in crumbs, and bake. You can also do this but instead of baking,
put
in a medium hot frying pan with a tablespoon of oil.
- I've cooked halibut for 100 people by arranging fillet chunks in
large
baking dishes, covering about half way with 2% milk, putting a small
dab
of butter on each piece, baking as above, then sprinkling with paprika
before serving to give it a little color.
Broiling:
- Small dab of butter and squeeze some lemon on each piece. Broil
about 7
to 10 minutes, turning once.
- As above, but brown on top some shredded parmesian cheese just
before
serving.
Barbeque:
- coat with olive oil, put on a medium hot grill, turn once, done
in
about
8 minutes.
- dab of butter and squeeze of lemon, turn after 4 minutes and dab
and
squeeze
side two
Frying:
- cut fillet into small portions
- rinse and drain
- dredge in flour
- dip into egg mixture (beaten whites and yolks)
- shake in a paper bag with cracker crumbs
- fry in hot pan with 1/8 inch of vegetable oil
- cooks quickly, about 3-4 minutes per side, done when brown and
flakes
- This is actually my oyster recipe (dip raw oysters into steaming
water
~ 1 minute, then cut into nice sized pieces)
Appetizer:
- A straight variation on angels on horseback, wrap 3/4 inch pieces
of
halibut
with bacon, hold tight with a toothpick, cook em in the broiler,
turning
once.
I'll continue to work on this. I have been catcopy of a book titled
'1000 ways to cook halibut'!. Although it really does have a lot of
recipes, they are generally variations on common themes - fried, baked,
broiled, barbecued, stews and chowders, steaks and fillets.
Basically, any recipe you can find for mild fish or fowl can be
adapted, and most likely improved, by substituting halibut for the
meat. A very good recipe for
a baked and breaded fillet and another for deep-fry are here.
Our staff turn out some pretty good fare. Here's a page with some of our
Director's favorites. Here's a page with some
of Tracee
Geerneart's favorite recipes. This page turns out to be
pretty popular, and occasionally I get a
recipe
sent in. I will post recipes here.
You will probably want to try this genuine Kwakuitl Indian recipe
from
NW Coast circa 1914 for boiled
halibut heads & backbone (with etiquette tips included for
chewing the bones and spitting them on the floor!)
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