How to Cook Halibut
by Steve Kaimmer
Halibut is a wonderful fish to cook. It has little oil and no overpowering flavor of its own. It takes sauces wonderfully, and the only thing you have to watch out for is to not dry it out during the cooking. The following can apply to either steaks (bone-in) or fillets (boneless hunks of fish). Halibut get quite large, and you can have a boneless roast 8 to 10 pounds if you like! In all cases, the fish is done when you can flake it with a fork.
For any kind of cooking of non-oily fish, a rule of thumb is ten minutes per inch of thickness in a hot oven (this means 400 degrees or more). Most of my fish pieces are 3/4 to 1 inch thick, so both broiling and barbequing follow this time rule fairly well. When you lower the temperature, things get interesting and sauces have more time to interact with the flesh. From my experience, by lowering the temperature to 325 or so, this increases the cooking time to 1 1/2 hours.
Baking:
- Put the fish in a baking dish, cover about 2/3 with milk, a small pat of butter on each piece, and bake for 1 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.
- Cook as above, but cover with a can of 'Campbells Mushroom Soup'. This is the first way I ever baked halibut and it isn't bad and it is certainly easy.
- As above, but cover 2/3 with chicken broth.
- Kids love this breaded, you can even use 'Shake and Bake'. I rinse fillets, dip them in flour, coat them in an egg mixture (I use the yolks and whites), roll in crumbs, and bake. You can also do this but instead of baking, put in a medium hot frying pan with a tablespoon of oil.
- I've cooked halibut for 100 people by arranging fillet chunks in large baking dishes, covering about half way with 2% milk, putting a small dab of butter on each piece, baking as above, then sprinkling with paprika before serving to give it a little color.
Broiling:
- Small dab of butter and squeeze some lemon on each piece. Broil about 7 to 10 minutes, turning once.
- As above, but brown on top some shredded parmesian cheese just before serving.
Barbeque:
- coat with olive oil, put on a medium hot grill, turn once, done in about 8 minutes.
- dab of butter and squeeze of lemon, turn after 4 minutes and dab and squeeze side two
Frying:
- cut fillet into small portions
- rinse and drain
- dredge in flour
- dip into egg mixture (beaten whites and yolks)
- shake in a paper bag with cracker crumbs
- fry in hot pan with 1/8 inch of vegetable oil
- cooks quickly, about 3-4 minutes per side, done when brown and flakes
- This is actually my oyster recipe (dip raw oysters into steaming water ~ 1 minute, then cut into nice sized pieces)
Appetizer:
- A straight variation on angels on horseback, wrap 3/4 inch pieces of halibut with bacon, hold tight with a toothpick, cook em in the broiler, turning once.
HOT
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