antipinkkitten It’s finally happened. We finally made it to the Americas, starting with Chile.
While doing this journey around the world, the Americas has always been this fabled reference for us. Every time we would have discussions about seasonings and side dishes, we would bring up the same items we both missed: Chilies for me, and Potatoes for Brad.
While we traveled east from Greece to New Zealand, access to ingredients and seasoning evolved. Often, we take staple flavors for granted, specifically aromatics: Onions, Garlic and Pepper. We assume that a version of them exist everywhere, but sometimes – they don’t. Flavors may exist like them, such as Onions. Onions have their origin in the Fertile Crescent, but the flavor they provide exists in different species around the world, such as Spring Onions in Eastern Asia and Leeks.
These ingredients provide the smells that we expect with food, that makes us want to eat them. As we’ve mentioned before – Smells are a huge part of our evolutionary journey when it comes to food. It lets us know if something is appetizing prior to eating it. This isn’t to say that smells, and appeals to food isn’t personal: it is. What I may find appetizing by smell (A huge bowl of Alfredo pasta), may be found disgusting to others (i.e. Bradly, who will never eat it).
When it comes to the ingredients we have for this recipe, they range between very accessible to less so. Some of this is due to food evolution (i.e. Potato species from Pre-Columbian times, have changed radically due to selective breeding), others due to accessibility to less-popular ingredients (Rocoto Peppers vs. Chili Peppers). With this, we had to settle on a simple recipe of roasted potatoes and poached Sole, sprinkled in sea salt.
Roasted Potatoes and Poached Sole
Ingredients
- 8 Red Potatoes
- 4 Sole fish filets
- 1/2 tbsp of sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat Oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Take washed red potatoes, skin on, and cut into even 1/2 inch chunks. Lay on roasting pan, sprinkling 1/4 tbsp of salt on potatoes.
- Take fish filets and season with the remaining salt. Wrap in foil.
- Add roasting pan and fish to oven. Cook for 20 minutes.
- Take the potatoes out and flip them. Return to oven for 15 minutes.
- Remove fish and potatoes from oven. Unwrap Fish, and serve within 5 minutes.
Notes
You can substitute Sole with Sea Bass and if you have access to Rocoto Pepper Powder, you can use it as seasoning to provide an extra spice to this dish.
Don’t care about historical accuracy? This would be amazing with a homemade salsa or chimichurri sauce for over the fish.
Reviews
Meghan’s Review
4 out of 5 stars
This was a delightful simple dish. Between the roasted potatoes and fish, both had a full-flavour pop from just adding Sea Salt. As always, I would have loved additional flavors, especially some spice, but compromises were made.
Brad’s Review
5 out of 5 stars
What more can I say then, POTATOES! Every dish should have potatoes. What food can you eat with literally any meal? Breakfast? Hashbrowns. Lunch? French fries. Dinner? Baked potato. Desert? Potato pancakes. They litterly go with everything. I love potatoes so much. They are simple to make and easy to cook. Want to bake them? Throw them in the oven with some slat on them and BOOM! Want to mash them? Boil them and smash them!
The fish was good too.
