I grew up as a typical Midwestern Catholic kid in the 1960s and 70s. My parents were devout, but not too strict on things related to the Church. We did follow certain practices such as Mass on Sundays, though after about age 9 or 10, we most often went at different times rather than as a family. I had to go to confession at least once a year, though that may have been handled in the parochial schools I attended rather than the at the parent level. A little later I got drafted into the altar boy ranks along with most of my classmates. If I complained about any of this, a common saying around the house was "You live in our house; you live by our rules. When you live in your own house, you can live by your own rules." One rule my parents kept more out of tradition than for any other reason was to not eat meat on Fridays (or at least non-fish meat).
In my house this typically meant frozen fish sticks or patties; tuna salad sandwiches with cold cucumber salad on hot summer nights – a favorite; tuna casserole in the winter (the fish version of beef stroganoff); macaroni & cheese; or – when my parents went out on Friday nights with friends which they often did – a cheese pizza and salad sometimes made it to the table.
My mom used to always say that there was no longer any requirement to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in the Church, but that our family chose to do so out of tradition. And she would add fish was more healthy and it was good to sacrifice occasionally. Looking back, as a middle-aged adult, I’m not sure how healthy frozen, battered fish logs slathered in tarter sauce were but in principle, even at that age, I agreed with what she meant.
I'm not much of anything these days. Religionwise, that is – though some would say why limit that statement to religion? And I’m not a huge fish eater as an adult, though I’ve lived in Seafoodlandia for nearly 35 years now. But I’ve recently decided to revisit some of those roots and try to eat fish at least once a week – for some of the same reasons my mom listed back in the 70s. It is probably a little healthier fare and doing something different (if not really sacrificing) is good for the soul (if not the sole).
Tonight I winged it. This morning I picked up a fresh halibut fillet at the small grocery in Phinney Ridge that has become one of my favorites for meat and fish. I learned just the other day that fish is best eaten very fresh and to not let it sit in the reefer for five days or longer – trust me, there's two lessons there that I'll never forget.
It was a nice early evening, so I elected to grill it outdoors. That has the added benefit of not stinking up the house with cooked fish. I grilled some asparagus along with the halibut and topped the fish off with a homemade salsa verde of capers, home-grown curly parsley, a mashed garlic clove, some olive oil and a pinch of salt. I also had a side of first-time-from-scratch homemade Tabuleh salad.
Tabouleh salad made with homegrown ingredients.
All-in-all, it came out pretty tasty. I'll probably switch to a slightly different salsa verde next time, to one I've made recently for salisbury steak. It is basically the same ingredients as tonight's except it uses finely diced white onion soaked in balsamic vinegar and kosher salt for 30 minutes rather than garlic. I'm not a huge garlic fan.
Tonight's dinner felt a little healthier than my conventional homemade meals. And it wasn’t much of a sacrifice.
Recipes
Salsa Verde + Grilled Fish:
Basically, the recipe I followed for the salsa verde sauce to use with the grilled fish follows this one from Martha Rose Shulman from the New York Times with two exceptions:
- I did not use anchovies in the salsa; and
- I used halibut rather than cod.
Tabouleh Salad
The recipe for came from the package on a bag of Bob's Red Mill Red Wheat Bulgar. It also closely follows this recipe from Melissa Clark, again of the Times.