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Thread: Taking full advantage of lent....

  1. #1
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    Taking full advantage of lent....

    ...and the need within the Catholic church to reframe from meat on Fridays during lent.

    That has the great benefit of increasing the selection of seafood---especially in the local grocery store. Not to sound snobbish, but farm raised salmon is next to tilapia on my avoid list. However, wild caught Alaskan Salmon is another matter---and that is what will be for dinner tonight.

    Fish, in general, is most often both simple and quick to prepare and this recipe does that with tremendous flavour:

    Salmon With Anchovy-Garlic Butter
    MELISSA CLARK
    • Time25 minutes
    • Yield4 servings

    Salmon With Anchovy Butter
    Minced anchovies and garlic add a complex salinity to seared salmon, enriching and deepening its flavor. To get the most out of them, the anchovies and garlic are mashed into softened butter, which is used in two ways: as a cooking medium and as a sauce. Used to cook the salmon, the butter browns and the anchovies and garlic caramelize, turning sweet. When stirred into the pan sauce, the raw garlic and anchovies give an intense bite that’s mitigated by the creaminess of the butter. It’s a quickly made, weeknight-friendly dish that’s far more nuanced than the usual seared salmon — but no harder to prepare.


    INGREDIENTS
    • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
    • 4 anchovy fillets, minced
    • 1 fat garlic clove, minced (or 2 small ones)
    • ½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
    • Freshly ground black pepper
    • 4 (6- to 8-ounce) skin-on salmon fillets
    • 2 tablespoons drained capers, patted dry
    • ½ lemon
    • Fresh chopped parsley, for serving
    • Nutritional Information
    o Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
    501 calories; 35 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 9 grams monounsaturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 0 grams sugars; 42 grams protein; 135 milligrams cholesterol; 656 milligrams sodium

    PREPARATION
    1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, mash together butter, anchovies, garlic, salt and pepper.
    2. In a large ovenproof skillet, melt about half the anchovy butter. Add fish, skin side down. Cook for 3 minutes over high heat to brown the skin, spooning some of the pan drippings over the top of the fish as it cooks. Add capers to bottom of pan and transfer to oven. Roast until fish is just cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes.
    3. Remove pan from oven and add remaining anchovy butter to pan to melt. Place salmon on plates and spoon buttery pan sauce over the top. Squeeze the lemon half over the salmon and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  2. #2
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    My family, like many others I knew of, regularly had Fish Sticks for dinner on Fridays. I think it was a way to meet the specs by serving something that seemed to be fish parts. Man, I do not miss that.

    Hunter
    I don't care if it hurts. I want to have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. - Creep by Radiohead

  3. #3
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    I have to admit, when the kids were young, the cupboard often sparse and my wife was doing the cooking we ate our share of fish sticks---the kids ate them and they pass muster with the Church

    Another bad memory from that age was tuna noddle casserole---a couple of years ago we stopped in a dinner for a quick dinner---they had that on the menu and my wife ordered it---I think there was a total of two bites taken from that plate---one by my wife and one by me---the memory remains fresh in my mind!

    We didn't eat very well when we were poor---groceries came after payroll and CAT leases
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  4. #4
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    Due to my ignorance of Catholicism I've never understood the significance of fish on Fridays. With the advent of the internet, I could easily look it up, but I'm sure it would just open up a can of worms about other things I don't understand about religion.
    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke

  5. #5
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    That recipe is tremendous. My wife is not a big fan of capers and anchovies but she loved the salmon. Since I am a fan of both I have been slowly exposing her, often without prior notice.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike View Post
    Due to my ignorance of Catholicism I've never understood the significance of fish on Fridays. With the advent of the internet, I could easily look it up, but I'm sure it would just open up a can of worms about other things I don't understand about religion.
    I just saw this. Allow me to answer this in the morning when I am on a keyboard. It is far beyond my ability to do on my phone.

  7. #7
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    To make it easy, I am going to do a cut and paste. What follows comes from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis but applies to all of the US:
    Why don’t Catholics eat meat on Fridays?
    Catholics abstain from flesh meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and the Fridays of Lent.

    Abstinence is one of our oldest Christian traditions. “From the first century, the day of the crucifixion has been traditionally observed as a day of abstaining from flesh meat (“black fast”) to honor Christ who sacrificed his flesh on a Friday” (Klein, P., Catholic Source Book, 78).

    Up until 1966 Church law prohibited meat on all Fridays throughout the entire year. The new law was promulgated in 1983 in the revised Code of Canon Law which states, “Abstinence [is] to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Canon 1251). “All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence” (Canon 1252). The U. S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) extended this law to include all Fridays in Lent.

    Since Jesus sacrificed his flesh for us on Good Friday, we refrain from eating flesh meat in his honor on Fridays. Flesh meat includes the meat of mammals and poultry, and the main foods that come under this heading are beef and pork, chicken and turkey. While flesh is prohibited, the non-flesh products of these animals are not, things like milk, cheese, butter, and eggs.

    Fish do not belong to the flesh meat category. The Latin word for meat, caro, from which we get English words like carnivore and carnivorous, applies strictly to flesh meat and has never been understood to include fish. Furthermore, in former times flesh meat was more expensive, eaten only occasionally, and associated with feasting and rejoicing; whereas fish was cheap, eaten more often, and not associated with celebrations.

    Abstinence is a form of penance. Penance expresses sorrow and contrition for our wrongdoing, indicates our intention to turn away from sin and turn back to God, and makes reparation for our sins, it helps to cancel the debt and pay the penalties incurred by our transgressions.

    Abstinence is a form of asceticism, the practice of self-denial to grow in holiness. Jesus asks his disciples to deny themselves and take up their Cross (Mt 16:24). Abstinence is a sober way to practice simplicity and austerity, to deny the cravings of our bodies to honor Jesus who practiced the ultimate form of self-denial when he gave his body for us on the Cross. Thus, to give up flesh meat on Fridays, only to feast on lobster tail or Alaskan king crab, is to defeat the ascetical purpose of abstinence. Less is more! There are countless options for simple Friday meatless dinners: pancakes, waffles, soup and rolls, chipped tuna on toast, macaroni and cheese, fried egg sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese pizza, and of course, fish.
    This tradition dates back to the time of the Apostles. I have to confess (pun intended) that our dinner last night was far from simplicity and austerity which can defeat the real purpose of abstaining. My wife and I are past the age of required fasting but we still do so on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

    Into the middle ages there was also a requirement to practice Lactina---the abstinence from what we now call dairy products as well as alcohol:

    We can learn much from our Latin ancestors’ observance of the Lenten Quadragesima and perhaps follow their example; if not entirely in practice, at least in spirit . . .
    Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were “black fasts.” This means no food at all.

    Other days of Lent: no food until 3pm, the hour of Our Lord’s death. Water was allowed, and as was the case for the time due to sanitary concerns, watered-down beer and wine. After the advent of tea and coffee, these beverages were permitted.

    No animal meats or fats.
    No eggs.
    No dairy products (lacticinia) – that is, eggs, milk, cheese, cream, butter, etc.
    Sundays were days of less liturgical discipline, but the fasting rules above remained . . .

    Beyond the daily penances, the Triduum was more severe than even the “Black Fast” mentioned earlier. The Good Friday fast began as early as sundown on Maunday Thursday, lasting through the noon hour on Holy Saturday—when the early Church performed the Easter Vigil.
    Now---for the kicker---in my Mennonite home we observed fasting and abstinence during lent. That was not, to the best of my knowledge, a Mennonite directive but broadly done in my area--beginning with "Shrove Tuesday", the day before ash Wednesday. A true fasnacht must be made in lard---anything else is simply an imposter

    Fasnacht is a fried doughnut of German origin served traditionally in the days of Carnival and Fastnacht or on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent starts. Fasnachts were made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter, which were traditionally fasted from during Lent.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  8. #8
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    Obviously, this is the thread that teaches me something today.

    Thanks, Dave.

    Hunter
    I don't care if it hurts. I want to have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. - Creep by Radiohead

  9. #9
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    Thanks Dave. I must admit that there is much about religion I don't understand and doubt I ever will.
    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke

  10. #10
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    Excellent---thank you both
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

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