The Cookbook Project: Will My 3-Year-Old Eat This? Issue No. 3
soy-brined halibut with [turnip] greens, sesame, and lime
So I totally messed up last week and botched the original author of this recipe.
, my apologies, I confused one of your fish recipes that I am planning on testing with this one from ’s DINING IN. My bad, y’all, but mom brain is real.Being from the Midwest since birth, my exposure to fish has been pretty poor. In this day and age though, the distribution of seafood around the globe is probably a million times better than it was in the 90’s. (Or the late 1900’s, as the kids now say, apparently. 😭💀) We purchase all of our seafood from Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood Company from their biweekly stall at our local farmers market, and it has always been stellar. The royal red shrimp? LIke mini-lobsters. The salmon? Impeccable taste.
But I’ve also been pretty intimidated by learning how to cook fish properly, due to its delicate nature and its price. We eat salmon fairly regularly, but mainly because I feel like there’s a lot of forgiveness when cooking salmon. I have a very simple way that I really like to cook it, and I’m kind of afraid to try a different way. Because I’m afraid of failure. With such a familiar ingredient, it scares me to potentially waste food, if that makes sense.
So why not use a fish that I’ve never used before and make a recipe that I’ve never made before? What could possibly go wrong?
For this Cookbook Project of mine, I thought it would be important to include foods for myself that I’ve always been curious to try. So this recipe qualifies as both an EXPAND OUR PALATE and a HIT OR MISS recipe.
Halibut has been on my list since 2013. Shortly after I moved to Indianapolis, I was working for a wealthy family as a glorified nanny / errand bitch. One of my errands was to pick up halibut at the butcher shop. My poor ass could only dream of cooking and eating halibut, both at home or out to eat. Not on that pittance. (I’m making it sound like I hated that job, but in all seriousness, that family really helped me out — they were so flexible with me when I was getting my footing in the freelance music scene here in Indy and Detroit for a hot minute.) But ever since then, halibut has had this allure of something decadent. And my instincts were right: halibut is generally of a very high quality and sustainably harvested by small-boat fishermen. The texture is meaty and flaky with a fairly neutral taste, making it ideal for salty savory brines.
This recipe wasn’t an absolute failure, but I can’t say that it was a success. The greens were delicious, but the fish was pretty bland. It was probably a lot of operator error, as there were several deviations from the exact directions, which I’ll write about in the Notes / Suggestions / My Adaptations section. All said and done, the recipe came together very quickly, which wins major points in the busy parent world. Its simple preparation frees up the time and mental bandwidth to attend to the demands of your sweet little dictator. We’ll probably try this recipe again, when I can control for every element to be more exact.
Most importantly though: what did the 3-year-old think of this cookbook recipe? Despite the tough night we were having with all the highs and lows of a preschooler’s emotions, he ate the halibut fairly well. He called it chicken, which I guess is a good thing. Or maybe I overcooked it… The greens? I had to lay down the law and have him try one bite before he was excused from the table. That’s our dinner table rule. I don’t care if he doesn’t have another bite, he just has to have one, and then he can decide if he wants to eat more or not. Sometimes it feels wrong to force him to eat, but it triggers something deep inside to hear the words “I don’t like it” when the food hasn’t even been tried yet. Consistent boundaries are exhausting — I have to believe that one day it will all just click — but for now, we are here in this moment, just riding the tidal waves of emotion and getting a lot of whiplash.
Adapted from Dining In by Alison Roman. Copyright © 2017. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved.
SOY-BRINED HALIBUT WITH TURNIP GREENS, SESAME, AND LIME
Ingredients
⅓ cup plus 2T soy sauce or tamari
3T rice vinegar
3 (8-ounce) halibut fillets
original recipe calls for 4 fillets, weighing 4- to 6-ounces each
3T raw sesame seeds
3T toasted sesame oil
6 cups turnip greens, torn into 2-inch pieces
3T fresh lime juice
lime wedges
Directions
Combine the ⅓ cup soy sauce, rice vinegar, and 1 ⅓ cup water in a large ziplock bag. Add the halibut and refrigerate, flipping once, for 1 to 2 hours.
Toast the sesame seeds in a large skillet over medium-high heat, tossing frequently until the seeds are evenly golden brown and smelling toasted, about 4 minutes. Transfer the sesame seeds to a small bowl and set aside, reserving the skillet.
Bring the sesame oil, remaining soy sauce, and 1 cup water to a simmer over medium heat in that same large skillet. Remove the halibut from its brine and place in the skillet. Cover and gently simmer )make sure the liquid never comes to a boil) until it’s just cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Scatter the greens around the fish and cook, covered, just until the greens turn bright green and wilt, about 2 minutes.
Transfer the fish and greens to a large serving platter, leaving the soy brine behind. Add the lime juice to the skillet with the brine, swirling to combine, then spoon over the greens and fish. Sprinkle with the scallions and sesame seeds and serve with lime wedges for squeezing.
Alison suggests serving with rice or crispy smashed potatoes.
Notes / Suggestions / My Adaptations
This recipe originally calls for mustard greens, but I pivoted to turnip greens since I had the tops to 2 bunches of salad turnips on hand. I would think that almost any bitter or dark leafy green would work as a substitute, lessening or lengthening the wilting time based on how thin or thick the greens are. The greens were my favorite part of the dish.
My cuts of halibut were a bit larger than Alison’s recipe called for, so I made the proper adjustments for the brine. BUT I was only able to brine the fish for the minimum time of 1 hour. I do think that a longer brining time would have helped the flavor of the fish a lot.
I also completely forgot the chives that I was going to use in place of scallions because dinner needed to get on the table FAST that night.
This actually worked great as leftovers since the fish got to continue sitting in its brine. I added a quick drizzle of sesame oil, more lime juice and toasted sesame seeds on top.
I used a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, and it worked very well.
SARAH’S SATURDAY FARMERS MARKET HAUL
🍓Strawberries are here! And pretty early at that. It’s definitely been a warmer spring than expected, but I’m not mad about it. Lots more green stuff at the markets too — baby chard, get outta here and make way for the mama chards.
I’m feeling like the outdoor market is really coming into its own and that brings me a lot of joy and comfort.
May 17


produce: strawberries ($24); carrots, radishes, rainbow chard, tuscan kale, sugar snap peas, green onions, basil ($36.40)
protein: ~3 pounds flank steak, 4 pound whole cut-up chicken, 2 dozen eggs ($132.98)
miscellaneous: 2 pounds honey ($25); knife sharpening service for 4 knives ($14)
total spent = $232.38
other ingredients on hand, from last week or in freezer:
rhubarb
salad turnips
pie dough
asparagus
meatballs
leftover roast chicken
potential recipes, off the top of my dome:
sides / quick veg ideas
pickled radishes + salad turnips
MORE PESTO (carrot top + basil)
grilling:
grilled carrots + asparagus
grilled flank steak
mains:
chicken salad with green onions, carrots, chard stems, radishes
Mexican black beans and greens
turn into quesadillas?
desserts:
rhubarb pie
Of course, I got a last-minute symphony gig this past week, so my “week off”went bye-bye real fast, and my promise to deliver recipe and cooking updates on Notes completely failed. If I’m being completely honest here, sometimes, the social media thing just does not come naturally to me. It’s either that or I just don’t have the bandwidth for it anymore as I try to be an aware and functioning human being on planet Earth. Does anyone actually look at Notes anyway or is it just a bunch of folks shouting into the void?
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.
❤️ Sarah
Everything sounds very delicious!