Catfish & Asparagus

I know its a bit early in the season, but asparagus were on sale for $1.99 a pound and I could not resist. I had some left over greens from last night, so I was thinking salad. Doing laps around the store I finally settled on some decent looking catfish and thought about the preserved lemons sitting in the back of the fridge.

Charred Asparagus
1 lb. asparagus
salt

1. Snap each asparagus at the base.
2. In a heavy bottom skillet, sear the asparagus over high heat. (Doing this in 2 or 3 batches will prevent over-crowding of the pan - which leads to steaming, rather than charring.)
3. Remove from pan and sprinkle with salt.







Baked Catfish with Preserved Lemons

2 tsp oil
1/2 peel of a preserved lemon, rinsed & chopped/torn
3/4-1 lb. catfish, cleaned
Old Bay seasoning
cumin
salt

Preheat oven at 350F
1. Spread oil and lemon peel on bottom of pan.
2. Put the fish atop the peel.
3. Sprinkle Old Bay, cumin and a little salt on top.
4. Bake at 350F till the fish is cooked through. (This is going to vary depending on the thickness of your fillets.)




Salad w/Lemon Vinaigrette
washed & dried salad greens
juice of one lemon (1 part)
salt
white pepper
olive oil (3 parts)

1. In a large bowl - bigger than you think you need, the bigger the easier it is for tossing - put the lemon juice, salt and white pepper. Mix until the salt is dissolved.
2. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking or mixing vigorously.
This is going to produce a "broken" dressing, one where the acid (lemon juice) and fat (olive oil) are separate, don't worry if its not one homogenized mix, its not suppose to be.
Add about 3x as much olive oil as lemon juice.
3. Place the greens in the bowl and gently toss to lightly coat the greens.



Put it all together and you get dinner!