Ocean Perch

Continuing in my search for new fish options, I saw fresh ocean perch on sale at the store the other day. My only experience with perch until this point was lake perch, which unless you caught a really big one, we always threw back. Too small and boney to deal with. The ocean perch looked and smelled good though, so I came home with some and did a little research online for recipes. I saw a lot of baked ideas, but didn't feel like turning the oven on just for a piece of fish, so I took the breading idea from the baked recipes and just did it in a pan with some olive oil instead. I dredged the filet in bread crumbs with parmesan cheese, dried herbs and salt. A great feature of fish for a weeknight meal is how fast it cooks! To go with it, another fast side: spinach with garlic. I just slice the garlic because the bigger pieces are sweeter than minced when you let them slowly caramelize in the pan in some olive oil. Then just add fresh spinach (baby is best, but regular large leaf is fine, just pull out the big stem pieces) and some salt to taste and wilt the leaves in the hot oil. This was a fast, yummy and healthy meal. One thing that was still true about my knowledge of perch though: boney. We found bones in both pieces I cooked, so be careful! Those tiny bones were like needles.