Sunday Night Special: Swiss Chard with Raisins and Pine Nuts & Flounder with Garlic Sauce

No matter how good they might taste, I have a knack for making my meals look sad and pathetic. This fish never stood a chance. 

This three-day weekend I finally got around to looking over a Christmas present, Jose Andres’s Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America. The same day I found a recipe in the new Gourmet that was very similar to one in the book I had my eye on. Synchronicity.

Jose Andres’s recipe used spinach, apples raisins and pine nuts while Gourmet’s version called for Swiss chard, raisins, onions and almonds. I love the Spanish use of nuts and raisins (especially with morcilla–which wasn’t called for in either of these—I’m just saying). I borrowed from both sources since I prefer heartier wilted greens to wet spinach and had a container of pine nuts that needed using up. Even though I liked the idea of adding a golden delicious and creating a pine nut praline, they didn’t make it into this version.

We already had a fish dish from Cooking Light (low fat isn’t exciting but I try to reign in my impulses during the week) on the roster that incorporated mayonnaise, so it was fortuitous that Gourmet paired their Spanish-influenced chard with a garlicky faux aioli topped halibut (strange, the way they've broken out the new Gourmet.com; the chard recipe shows up on Gourmet.com while the fish only appears on Epicurious). I had to use flimsy little flounder filets because that was what the original plan entailed.

I could’ve predicted that I’d like the sweet and oily Swiss chard more than the fish, but that’s mostly because I have a fear of mayonnaise even when I know rationally that it’s just eggs and oil. I think my perfect version of the vegetable dish would keep the chard, onions and smoked paprika I used in this one, add the apples and swap the pine nuts for almonds. Next time.

Follow

Share on Tumblr