Grouper Therapy and the Art of Patience

This post is from a dinner I cooked last week but too busy to write about until today. But as the old saying goes, better late than never.

After my monthly visit to the allergist for my allergy shot, I swung by a local fish market to pick out something for dinner. The place is called Slavins and has some of the best seafood in the area. And because it's all so good, it's always hard for me to choose something. This particular day, there were several varieties of salmon that looked very tempting as did the shrimp, tuna, swordfish and seabass. But it was a nice piece of grouper that caught my eye. It was a fairly large fillet, just about 1 pound but I got it all anyway.

Now Biscuit Boy is the cooker of all things fish in our house but tonight I wanted to try my hand at it. I think part of my reason for not being that good at cooking things like fish is that I tend to be impatient when I'm standing in front of the stove. I can't just let something sit there and cook with out fidgeting with it. Maybe that's why I like to stir-fry so much, it's quick and you're always moving things around in the wok.

But under Biscuit Boy's patient eye, he led me through the process. I sliced the fillet into four slices and seasoned it with some cajun seasoning then fired up the iron skillet. And being impatient, I wanted to throw the fish in right away but Biscuit Boy held me back.....wait for it, wait, wait...... Then finally he said the skillet was just right. We set the timer for 5 minutes and tossed in the fish.

It sizzled immediately and the aroma was fantastic. But then again, my impatience had me itchin' to take a peek at the underside....you know....just to see how it was doing. But Biscuit Boy wagged his finger at me and said no. Pointing to the timer, he showed me that I still had just about three and a half minutes to go! Agony! I wanted to peek soooooo bad but I prevailed and stood there til the timer went off. I carefully turned over all four pieces then we placed the skillet in the oven to finish cooking. This was way easier for me since it was now in the oven and not staring at me from atop the stove. I set an oven thermometer into the thickest piece and set the temp timer to go off when the fish reached a certain temperature.

While this was cooking, I opened up a bag of Trader Joe's Risotto with asparagus and cooked it up. And before I knew it, the fish was done.
It was so tender and flavorful with the cajun seasoning giving it a nice kick. The creamy risotto helped balance it out. It was so good that we both went back for seconds. And it was just what Biscuit Boy needed after a long day, some good grouper therapy.