What happens when I get bored

[tylerm713]

When I get bored, I often turn to food. That was the case this afternoon. I picked up some Dover sole at the market after lunch, and decided to attempt to make an elegant, Louisiana-inspired dish for dinner.

First, I made a variation of a classic Cajun dish called couche couche (pronounced coosh coosh). Usually, couche couche is served for breakfast as a cereal with cane syrup or corn syrup. It's a mix of yellow cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and water that is cooked in a pan with hot oil. I also added a pinch of bloomed saffron, a fresh grind of sea salt, black and white peppercorns, juniper berries, coriander seeds, and fenugreek, and a small squeeze of lemon juice. The couche couche is then cooked until crumbly. While cooking, I added about a tbsp of unsalted butter, and about a tbsp of rendered duck fat.  

I cut the sole fillet into smaller portions and seasoned them with the same spices used in the couche couche. I then seared the strips in a mix of canola oil and butter.

The whole dish was then topped with hollandaise. This was my first attempt at making hollandaise, and I must say that I'm extremely pleased because I used direct heat, instead of a double boiler, and it worked on the first try (no scrambled eggs!). To keep the spice consistent, I added a pinch of the same grind used throughout the dish.

After plating, I added a small squeeze of lemon and dusted the plate with cayenne pepper. Overall, I must say it was a great success.

 

[teamfat]

Nice to hear your first try at hollandaise worked well, freshly made it is a great sauce. Looks good, I want a taste even though I am pretty full from the roast chicken, rice and gravy I just finished for dinner.

mjb.

 

[phatch]

I would have put the hollandaise on the fish in this case. It would cool down too much on the plate in those small dabs and cool/cold hollandaise doesn't work for me.

 

[chrisbelgium]

Tyler, I hope you get bored more often so we all can enjoy your experiments. Very nice plate and a great recipe! Your hollandaise looks terrific indeed.

I am very intriged by the couche-couche, probably a reference to couscous, but entirely reconstructed (maybe by the french immigrants?).

 

[chefedb]

I agree with Phatch I would have drizzled it over fish and use either green chives or parsley around it/

 

[gonefishin]

    

  It's a little difficult to see, but he does have some hollandaise sauce on the fish.  I could see your point about the cold hollandaise on the plate.  Maybe a nice spicy creole sauce would have worked on the plate for a little contrast of flavors and colors, while holding up better on the plate.  Some chives would be good too. 

   Tyler, the plate looks great and the dish looks delicious!  Nice work.  

    I hope you didn't want us to discourage you from creating new dishes when you get bored.  /img/vbsmilies/smilies/thumb.gif

  dan