The Process.....

Protien + Starch + Veg + Sauce + Garnish = Dish......its a simple formula, one that a lot of cooks I have been around tend to forget. I was making a catch the other day and normally I don't think of it written out like that but for some reason I just kept mumbling it to myself ("finkle and einhorn, einhorn and finkle," please someone get this movie reference), maybe I hadn't had enough caffeine yet. Anyways, after standing in the walk-in for about twenty minutes I had the dish in my head. I knew I was using swordfish, yukons golds, fennel, chives from our garden, roma tomatoes and olives. Here is where the fun begins, how do all these ingredients go from the cooler to plate. This is also where things can go horribly wrong. I decided to cook the potatoes slowly in the oven with oil, garlic, thyme and some slices of pancetta..... ......about two hours at 325 with a foil cover will do. Since I knew I was using fresh fennel, I decided to also use roasted and ground fennel seed to crust the fish, that way I could let the fresh fennel stay fresh by making a little salad garnish(which by the way I am obsessed with doing ever since I left the blue zoo). Thats a lot of rich flavors so it was a good thing I had the acidity of the tomatoes to help cut it a little, they joined with the olives to make a quick pan sauce. A pan sear on the potatoes here, butter sauce on the bottom there, Medium Swordfish and Boom.......we had the sum of the equation.