Cream Dory with Dill

First of all, I want to congratulate my very good friend, Tricia, for taking the same difficult step I took six months ago: learning how to cook. I didn’t find it easy, especially in the beginning. I found it tedious, tiring, and frustrating especially when it bombs even if I follow the recipe to the letter (or when I think I did). There are little successes and almost-successes. I still eat my failures to teach myself to fail much less often in the future.

When we were in college, the only cooking Tricia and I could manage was to fry a can of Spam and to pour water into a cup of instant Yakisoba. Any “proper” food would have to be eaten from restaurants. And we could only afford so much on a college student’s budget.

Now, Trish has a food blog, Whipped, where she chronicles her adventures in cooking and as she eats her way through the finest places in Manila. And to celebrate Tricia’s recent cream dory with mango salsa project (yum yum, I can just taste it!), here’s another cream dory recipe from me.

I’ve seen recipes where they used dill. And I’ve seen dill itself in the supermarket whenever we would do our weekly grocery shopping. It has always been a mysterious herb to me. I’m not sure what it tastes like, exactly, since we don’t usually use dill in Filipino cooking. And I grew up on native homecooked meals.

So I thought dinner time would be a good time to experiment. *evil grin* I have been craving for fish and I suspect that I would sprout wings if I eat another chicken dish.

I kept it relatively simple and broke the rule of using only white wine for white meat.

My fish pictures look awful. But have you ever seen wonderful pictures of raw fish chunks? I doubt it. If Steamy Kitchen — who is a much better food photographer and food stylist than I can ever dream to be — cannot make raw fish look amazing, then me and my Canon EOS1000 probably can’t.

And the end result was… it was surprisingly edible. Okay, okay,  it was quite yummy. I ate it with a half-cup of steam white rice and the spinach dish I was so excited about earlier. Now, please excuse me. I need to think of more things to do with dill.

Cream Dory with Dill

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 kilo cream dory fillets, approximately 4 sides
1/2 cup red wine
2 stalks of spring onion, chopped
a few sprigs of dill
100 grams (half a can) mushrooms, drained
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce

Procedure:

• Slice each fish fillet lengthwise. Then halve each slice diagonally.
• When the EVOO in the saute pan is hot (medium heat), put the fish slices in the pan one by one, taking care not to splash yourself with oil.
• Pour the red wine evenly into the pan. Sprinkle the chopped spring onion over the fish. Let it simmer for 2 minutes until the wine is reduced and cover.
• When the fish looks white, uncover and sprinkle the dill over the fish. Scatter the mushrooms over it and add the soy sauce.
• Don’t stir the ingredients in because the fish will disintegrate. Carefully use a spatula to move the fish slices around if necessary.
• Cover the pan again and let it simmer for a minute. Uncover and remove from heat.
• Serve.

 

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