Review - Halibut Alla Diavola Issue 61

[HomeCulinarian]

I searched the posts and don't find that this recipe from Issue 61 was ever reviewed.... I made it tonight and we rated it "very good plus". (At our house, the rating system is Excellent, Very Good, Good, Okay, Dog/Dud. So on the 10 point scale I guess that would equate to a 8-9.

Our tomato harvest is waning and I wanted to use them up. Unfortunately, the romas were not as ripe as they could have been detracting from the sauce. I also cut back the red pepper flakes by half - 1 teaspoon vs 2 teaspoons. Those [Email]C@H[/Email] chefs really like the red pepper flakes (and garlic, altho this recipe only called for 2 cloves)!

Mind you, we live in the middle of Illinois, so I've been buying the Full Circle frozen wild caught Halibut. It has been reliably good. No such thing as fresh fish here! http://www.fullcirclefoods.com/site/epage/46656_650.htm

Served it over the recommended lemon parsley couscous, which was a good combination, and a tossed salad.

PS - I'm annoyed with the forum's search feature. I enter a search and then if I ask for another search I'm told I have to wait a few minutes before it will allow me to search again. I expect that this is some sort of preventative measure for evil people. I'm not evil (well, most people would agree), I just find it annoying!

[Old Bay]

My tomatoes burned up a month ago. Summer had used up its value. Enjoy your bounty--is this recipe too strong for halibut? I Love the delicacy in halibut and flounder--soft sauces or just citrus. Please let me know how you liked it from this standpoint.

[Lorraine]

I still have tomatoes in the garden, and we love halibut (even if the price has gone through the roof here), and I can get it fresh. Thanks for the review!

[cjs]

Just looked at the recipe - yum! Thanks for bringing this one up. (I think I have one pkg. left in freezer, then I'll have to go check out our prices!)

[HomeCulinarian]

Bill - you bring up a good point about the delicate flavor of halibut and the strongly spiced tomato sauce. I guess my answer is that we gravitate toward strong flavors and hearty sauces. So, this recipe might not be one that you'd enjoy. That's the neat thing about variety of tastes... as the old saying goes, if everyone was the same, it would make for a boring existence.

On the price of Halibut -- a 12 oz package of the Full Circle halibut is ~$8 here. It is soooo much better than anything in the case at the local stores. We do have some Asian markets that I could try that have good quality items, one is known to have very good frozen seafood. It's just a bit out of the way and an extra stop on errand day!

[Roxanne 21]

I have the availabilty of Kingklip or Hake here---very similar to the halibut. I have made that dish, HC----and we enjoyed it---'cept I added a tad more garlic and also cut back on the red pepper flakes more than you did---C@H is a bit heavy on the red pepper as well as lemon so I work according to our taste---most of my recipes, with the changes, seem to come out pretty well!!