It’s been an exciting and busy week for cooking.  Barbara came home with a lovely piece of halibut from the market, so last night I tried a new recipe to make good use of the fish and available vegetables.  I’ve always liked how braising makes halibut so delicious and preserves its tender texture.  I didn’t have any fish stock available for the braising liquid, so I was delighted to find this recipe which makes its own liquid very elegantly.

To accompany the fish, I chose to lightly poach asparagus we needed to use up, along with a simple southern Italian potato recipe from Lidia Bastianich — one I have used before successfully.

This recipe was harder to find in my computer files because I had mistakenly titled the file as “Potatoes with Pepperoncino” when I saved it five years ago.  Now I know that the chili flakes should NOT have two pp‘s together — instead it is “peperoncino”.

The other adjustment required was to save those little flakes separately, just for my plate, since Barbara can’t tolerate peppers or hot stuff.  The dish came together beautifully, and we had a little fish and sauce leftover for another day.

The wine was already open from a few days earlier, a fine Greco di Tufo from Campania.