Fish Recipe: Cider Flounder Hard cider is a tonic alcoholic drink made from fermented apple juice. Not only is it good for drinking it also for cooking and flavoring mild and delicate fish like flounder. The slightly sweet meat of flounder fish is contrasted with the sharp and slightly bitter taste of hard apple cider. While most apple cider contains considerable amount of alcohol most of this will evaporate while cooking, leaving all the good flavors incorporated into fish. Because it is made from sweet apple juice, some apple cider varieties can also have a hint of sweetness that will complement the fish recipes very well. A thin flat fish with small flakes and clean, white meat, flounder is a delicious fish that should be cooked at just the right time and correct temperature to keep it moist and scrumptious. Because it is comparably lean, this fish dries fast when subjected to too much heat and is easy to overcook. It is thus best to cook them with aromatic liquids such as in healthy recipes. For this recipe, choose larger, thicker fillets that will absorb a lot of the flavors of the tangy sauce. It is better to buy the whole fish and fillet it yourself so you can be assured that no flavor is lost. If this is not possible, buy a whole fish in the market and ask your fishmonger to fillet the fish in front of you. Because this is a mild fish, frozen fillets tend to be bland and disappointing. Nevertheless, since this recipe includes quite powerful and piquant ingredients such as cider, lemon, parsley, and butter, even bland fish fillets will taste wonderful after cooking them in this method. Ingredients: 1 ½ cups chopped onion, 2 garlic cloves (minced), 2 ½ cups hard apple cider, sea salt, pepper (freshly ground), 4 flounder steaks, juice from 1 lemon, parsley (minced), butter Preparation Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Pour the oil in a skillet and warm over medium heat. Add the garlic and sautÊ for about 20 seconds, and then add the cider. Season with salt and pepper. Place the fish in a baking dish coated with nonstick spray. Season the fish with salt and pepper and sprinkle with lemon juice. Pout the cider mixture over the fish. Sprinkle the tomatoes on top of the fish, along with a little parsley and silver of butter. Bake for 20 minutes. For a meal better than great, serve this with ice-cold beer or a dry white wine. You might be tempted to serve this with apple cider, but that might just overwhelm the palate.
Source: www.gourmandia.com