Best Meal Ever: Fish a la Parisienne with Garlic Mashed Potatoes (and broccoli)

If you try only one fancy French meal I have made on this site, let it be this one. It was, by far, the best yet. I'm so excited about it I can't even think of a cute intro.

The first thing I worked on were the potatoes since you can set them aside and reheat right before serving. The potatoes have 2 separate components that you make individually then combine right before serving. The sauce is:

17 cloves of garlic
4 TBS margarine
2.5 TBS flour
1 cup boiling milk (I used 1%)
salt/pepper to taste

crap load of garlic

Looking at this I thought, "17 cloves of garlic, that HAS to be a typo!" Then I looked more closely at the recipe and the ever saucy MC [Ms. Childs] wrote  that though this seems like a "horrifying" amount, "if less is used, you will regret it!" Touche, MC. After dicing for about an hour I put the garlic into the butter over low heat for 20 minutes or so, then added the flour slowly until the sauce thickened (2ish minutes). Then, I took it off the heat and added the boiling milk and seasonings. Then I put back it on the heat for another 2 minutes to thicken again. I don't know if all this backing and forthing with the heat really does anything, but it tasted so good, I won't mess with it.

The next step in the potatoes was to make the base. Since it takes forever to boil water in altitude I should have been getting the water going during the first step, but as always the altitude tripped me up again and left me like 30 minutes behind. Here's the ingredients:

2.5 lbs potatoes, peels and quartered
3 TBS margarine, softened
3ish TBS whipping cream
1 TBS each of parsley, thyme, and 2 of herbs de province

You boil the quartered potatoes, then run them through a potato ricer. I still don't have one of those so I used a trusty potato masher instead. More messy, and therefore more fun IMHO. Then add the butter a little bit at a time. Lastly, right before serving beat in the garlic butter stuff and the cream. Do the cream a little bit at a time to make sure you aren't thinning it too much (personal preference of thickness here). Lastly, add in the herbs.

5 out of 5

Guys, this was AWESOME. I actually made Ian stop eating to make sure he took time to taste the herbs up front and then the garlic kick at the end of the bite (I told him to pretend it was beer and he was at a brewery doing a tasting). It was that good. No, it was better.

The main dish, fish a la Parisienne was astonishingly just as delicious, though a little challenging. It reminded me of when I first started doing these recipes and had to fumble around a bit to figure out what MC wanted me to do. Soooo worth it though.

The first step in this is to poach the fish. MC suggests using boiled down fish parts to do this. I refuse to boil down fish parts without some sort of weapon pointed in my direction, so I opted to poach in a white wine sauce of my own invention.

1 TBS shallots, minced
salt, pepper, onion powder to taste
1/2 cup vermouth
1/2 cup water
2 fillets Tilapia (less than 1 lb total)

You first season the fish with the salt/pepper/onion powder and then put the fish in the pan with the shallots. Pour in the liquids, making sure that they cover the fish. Then bring it to a light boil and place in the oven, covered, at 350 for 7 minutes/until it is cooked.

 I snuck a bite here, and honestly, this was good enough to eat already. I was glad I plodded on a head, though, because it gets sooo much better. You put this aside for a while (I put it in the micowave - turned off - to keep it warm), while you work on the sauce.

1.5 TBS margarine
2 TBS flour
boiling liquid from above, reduced to about 3/4 cup
1/4 cup milk (1%)
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 tsp lemon juice
3 TBS grated swiss cheese

To start off, melt the butter in a pan then add the flour slowly, until it is frothing. Take off the heat then add in the boiling liquid (you should heat up the liquid to a quick boil beforehand to reduce it down to the 3/4 cup) and the milk. Put back on the heat for about 2 minutes until it gets nice and thick.

Next, in a medium bowl, beat the yolks and mix in the whipping cream. Blend in the pre-made sauce slowly, making sure not to cook the yolks right away. Put back on the heat until you get a boil going for about a minute to get the sauce to the thickness you like. Add the lemon juice and some salt/pepper to taste.

Whew, we are finally onto the last step. Put the fish back into the pan, and cover with sauce and the grated cheese. Place in the broiler for a few minutes just to brown the top.

5 out of 5 on Yum scale

Seriously, this was the best meal I've had in a long time, including the semi-fancy French place we went to a few weeks ago. As you can see, I added some broccoli done with lemon pepper to the dish at the last minute to counter act the overt creamy-ness of the meal. It fit together perfectly, and every component worked as well separately as it did together, something I don't always make happen in my dinners. If I ever went into the restaurant business (and don't worry Mom and Dad, I won't!) this would be on my menu.

[NB: While these dishes are based in the Mastering recipes, I tinkered with them a little bit, so I feel alright posting them in totality.]