What You Should Have Eaten #55

CrunchyJapanese Fish with Vegetable and Noodle Toss

Click the title to a link to the recipe. The picture I took of the cookbook didn't come out all that well.

The drink I made while fixing this dinner was called an Oracabessa. Dark rum, banana-flavored liqueur, and lemon juice. Even with the lemon juice, it’s too sweet. The juice cuts it, but not really enough. I’d add a smidge more rum and a smidge less crème de banana (which is what I used as my banana-flavored liqueur).

I went cheap with all the possible ingredients here. Generic spaghetti. I used some frozen tilapia that I already had instead of the haddock. I actually used Rice Krispies instead of a generic cereal, but that was only because it was on sale and I had a coupon. All the spices and herbs I used were dried; nothing was fresh.

The only bean sprouts that my Kroger had available were from mung beans. I’m not at all familiar with bean sprouts and this is the first time I’ve ever cooked with them, so I don’t know if a different type would have affected the taste.

There are some things I always stay away from. Two are onions and spicy hot things. I decided to include the cayenne pepper, figuring that such a small amount of spice in such a large amount of food wouldn’t be overpowering. I kept out the scallions, though. Even a tiny amount of onions tend to tear me up.

I thought I had an almost full bottle of soy sauce (generic from Kroger, of course) in the fridge or an unopened full bottle in the cabinet, but I should have checked before going to the store. Since I didn’t have any soy sauce (let alone tamari), so I did the only thing I could think of: I used Worcestershire sauce. That’s the English soy sauce, right?

This was a pretty easy meal to prepare. As much as I enjoy the experience of preparing a meal, I sometimes just want to fix something that I can throw together. I mean, that’s technically what I do during the week, but that’s usually frozen dinners. It’s nice to just throw together a good meal quickly that doesn’t come out of the microwave or start out in the freezer.

Easy, yes, but tasty, too. The kids wouldn’t eat it because they’ll only eat fish if it’s in stick form, and there was no way that I could convince them that this was the same as fish sticks. I liked it, though. The fish was flaky and not overly “breaded,” and the lo mein was good, even without the soy sauce.