Saturday, November 3, 2018

Easy Baked Fish in the Wood Cookstove

I've mentioned before on this blog that this land-locked Iowa boy prefers to eat meat that originally had fur or feathers on it, but I do occasionally enjoy fish.  This method of baking fish is what my mother used to do when she cooked orange roughy for us when I was growing up.  However, when I find orange roughy these days, it is horribly expensive, so I now use this same method with pollack and feel that it is almost as good.  (In case you haven't followed this blog for very long, I'm all about dirt cheap cooking!)

I think that baking fish is particularly well-suited to the wood cookstove because it doesn't seem to me like it needs a certain oven temperature to be successful so long as your oven is at least above 250ºF.  If you disagree, let me know in the comments section below.

Because I never worry about an exact oven temperature for baking fish, I don't have to build my fire in any particular way before I begin the preparations for it.  I have also baked fish in both of my stovetop ovens quite successfully.

The first thing to do is to put your fish filets in a glass baking dish and sprinkle them with perhaps a tablespoon of lemon juice.  The acidic nature of the lemon juice is why I use a glass dish rather than a metal pan.

I then sprinkle the fish with a little seasoned salt.  I used Lawry's in the picture.  Some regular salt and a little paprika would work, too.  Then add a little bit of pepper.  I've also used a sparing sprinkle of Mrs. Dash, but Nancy doesn't like that, so I just used a tiny bit of freshly ground pepper in the photo below.

Lastly, dot the top of the fish with a little bit of butter--you don't need much!

The fish is ready to go into the oven.

Pop all of this in the oven to bake uncovered until the fish flakes easily when you stick a fork into it.  This occurs at an internal temperature of 145ºF.  The cooking time simply depends on how hot your oven is. Obviously, the hotter it is, the faster it will bake.

The fish is done because it flakes easily.

So quick, so easy, so flexible for the wood cookstove, and so delicious!

The fish was the only part of this meal that did not come from
our farm.  I wrote about preparing the squash in this post last week.

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