ottawa foodies

It sucks when it rains on August weekends. However, whitefish salad with fresh bagels doesn’t suck, so when I saw frozen whitefish on sale at Food Basics I decided to give it a shot...particularly when a jar of whitefish salad goes for $10ish at Lapointe’s. I originally planned to slowly and indirectly smoke/roast the fish over charcoal but torrential rains forced me to improvise.

Here is a pic of gently poaching a thawed whitefish in a simple court boullion of old celery, some garlic, onions and carrots. Herbs, lemon and salt in the cavity. Took about 10-12 minutes a side, then I let it cool in the pan till I could peel back skin and remove the flesh from the bones.

The finished product.

1: pickled beets w/some juice, horseradish, and 1/4 vidalia onion blended to a pulp in food processor. S + P. Add fish and pulse very gently to get the right consistency.

2: mayo, horseradish, vidalia, S + P. Same drill.

3: olive oil, lemon juice, vidalia, S + P.

I used to work at a NoFrills as a kid and never imagined what people did with these things as I was stocking them. Now I understand, even when frozen first the flesh has a very mild, firm texture, no fishiness whatsoever or the “murky” taste that can affect some freshwater fish.