Baked Cream Dory in mushroom sauce

Last May 21, my wife celebrated her birthday and as promised I have to cook a new menu that I haven't tried before. There are many things that came into my mind. From pork to chicken to beef to vegeteables, even salads and simple appetizers. My wife ask me to prepare a fish menu since most of the time I ussualy go for chicken or pork.

So I decided to go for Cream Dory. A day before my wife's birthday, I went to Muñoz market to look for fillet cream dory. But to my surprise prices of fillet fish has gone way way up. A fresh fillet lapu lapu now cost Php.500 a kilo, Maya maya 350, Betilla 400 and most of the other fishes there cost just the same. To top it all there was no Cream Dory.

I went straight to Walter mart just beside Muñoz wet market. There I found a frozen cream dory priced at 200 per kilo. "Nice" I said to my self, at least I can save a little more for some other ingredients. I bought 2 kilos of it, then some canned cream of mushroom, sliced button mushroom, fresh spinach, parmesan cheese, and other stuff I needed.

So here are the ingredients I bought for my Baked Cream Dory in Mushroom sauce.

Cream Dory (frozen fillet) - 2 kilos

Cream of mushroom (canned) - 2 cans

Sliced mushroom - 1 can

Nestle Cream - 1 can

Fresh spinach - 2 packs

Parmesan cheese - 1 pack (grated)

Onion and garlic - minced

Salt and pepper

Butter

lemon - 4 pcs.

Procedure:

I first thawed the fish in a bowl of water still inside its package. After an hour or 2 I brush butter on it, extracted lemon juice and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Since the fillet is a bit long, I cut it first diagonaly into 4 cuts and pan seared it. Searing a fish doesnt mean frying it on hot oil but just placing it on top of a hot pan brushed with oil. Using teflon coated pan helps a lot. Also always put the fish skin first for a crispier skin. When the fish all turns flaky white, that means you have to remove it and set them aside.

For the sauce, I sauteed minced onion and garlic and the drained sliced mushroom on melted butter. Then I poured in the cream of mushroom, the all purpose cream and a cup of water. Seasoned it with salt and pepper and a dash or dried rosemary. Let it thicken then turn off the heat.

Baking process:

In a aluminum baking pan or baking dish, brush it with some butter and place the fish on it on straight lines. Put 1 to 2 leaves of fresh spinach on each cut and pour some of the mushroom sauce I made earlier. Top it with grated parmesan cheese and put inside a pre heated oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes. Once some bubbles form on top of the cheese or it begins to brown a little that means the whole process is done. Serve in a large plate and put some parsley for some decorations.

We did enjoy that night along with some close relatives and friends. Aside from the fish, I also prepare pork dish and a chicken dish, but that will be for another post. Oh before I forgot I also cooked Pasta carbonara that night since made mushroom sauce, might as well cook something that will not cost much and can enhanced the fish and pork menus.

My wife...well she just enjoyed her birthday and gave me a great back massage for the days hard work.