I was explaining to some friends at work this meal one day this week and their eyes glazed over in the apparent amount of work it took to pull this off. I do not take an hour to assemble dinner each night, though I do work at a fast pace. I think this took maybe 40 minutes to assemble. I make the side dishes (sauteed spinach and sticky rice) while the halibut bakes, and everything is done around the same time. My mother-in-law was present at dinner since she had come to watch the kiddos. She thought it was good, too. 🙂 The kids sorta ate it. I figured they would be all over the phyllo wrapped halibut, but it didn’t tickle their taste buds that night.
Ingredients:
8 sheets phyllo dough
2 filets of Halibut
2-3 TBSP butter, melted
Seasoning (I used Singapore Seasoning) – this has a citric acid base and curry seasonings. Works well with the lemon sauce.
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup cream
6 spring onions, sliced to midway on the green part
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp butter
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1 large package spinach
1 shallot, minced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 lemon
sea salt & pepper, to taste
Steps:
– Turn on the oven to 380 degrees
– Cut halibut in 2 inch filets and season
– Butter the phyllo gently with a pastry brush and put into 4 layers. Cut in half (should have more in the package if you need more to wrap them)
– Wrap the halibut in phyllo, place on baking sheet (little more butter on top) and put in oven (should be preheated by now)
– Put rice in cooker and start cooking
– Juice lemon into a small pan and boil down (about 5 minutes)
– Cut the spring onions, shallots and garlic
– Add the wine to the boiled down lemon juice, boil down another 5 minutes
– Add the cream and spring onions to the boiled down wine/lemon, turn heat down
– Saute the garlic and shallots in a large pan
– Add the spinach and lemon juice to the pan (I usually have to let some of the spinach wilt before getting everything in there)
– Rice is probably done by now, so add a tsp of sugar and 1 tsp or so of rice wine vinegar, mix
– Take Halibut out of the oven after 30 minutes
– Plate everything up (pile of rice, pile of spinach, halibut across with the cream sauce over everything)
– Enjoy a first class meal in about 30 minutes.
Yum! This dinner has just about everything I love! I miss spending hours in the kitchen, because I actually DO love spending half a day making a great meal… but now I spend about 30 minutes on weeknights and about an hour on weekends making dinner. I’m bookmarking this one!