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As you know if you read my main blog, Mike was in the hospital for almost a week. When he was up to eating regular food, he ordered a baked fish fillet with a crumb topping, only to find that it was awful. It was horrifically overcooked, which is a very common mistake people make when attempting to cook fish.
Anyway, he complained so much about that fish, that I promised that when he came home, I would make him a much better piece of fish. I turned to my ever-growing Shaw’s “Get Inspired” recipe book (Shaws actually sells cute little binders in which to store all of the recipe cards, it’s only 99 cents), and decided that this recipe was exactly what I was looking for.
I used haddock fillets for this, they were on sale at Shaw’s this week for $6.99/pound. I bought two nearly complete sides of haddock, and the ends where they cut the tail off were kind of thin. You want to pieces to be at least an inch thick, too thin and they will overcook and be gross like the fish from the hospital. The recipe even says that if the pieces are thin, fold them in half to make them thicker. Some of the parts were thin enough that I had to roll them up. Just do whatever works best.
Fifteen minutes in a 450º F oven was perfect for this recipe, the fish came out mice, moist, and flaky, not dry at all. White fish like haddock and cod are kind of lean, and I think that the mayonnaise mixture that you brush on to adhere the crumb topping helped keep the fish from drying out. I don’t think the hospital used anything like that, it looked like they just stuck breadcrumbs on the fish and that was it. I know…they are trying to make things healthy and low-calorie, but come on, we’re talking only 3 tablespoons of mayo for the whole recipe. And light or low-fat mayo is perfectly fine here; we use it, and can barely tell the difference between Hellmann’s regular and the light variety.
If you don’t want to use butter to greas the baking sheet, that’s okay. Use Pam or brush it with some olive or canola oil. Just use something, even if the baking sheet is nonstick, fish does have a nasty way of sticking. I did use the butter, it’s not much and it adds flavor.
Whatever herb you choose here MUST be fresh, not dried. Parsley is usually the easiest to find; use the flat-leaf variety rather than the curly, flat-leaf has more flavor. I actually used basil because that was something I had in my fridge, and it was excellent that way. The recipe also suggests dill, which is excellent with fish in general. I think tarragon would be good, too. I just wouldn’t use anything really strong, such as rosemary, sage, oregano, those would overpower the delicate white fish.
I served it with steamed asparagus and rice…very tasty! Enjoy! 
