Poached fish with Emerils lettuce sauce

8/3/10 update - pictures! First one is before I put on the sauce, the second, after.

I've been putting lettuce sauce on my lettuce. That's how much lettuce I have recently. I found this sauce recipe in a Serious Eats column, and it's based off of an Emeril Lagasse recipe. Again I'm kind of breaking my rule for only posting original recipes, but this was so good, and although the sauce recipe recommended serving it on poached fish, I experimented a little with that part of the recipe. The sauce really tastes like lettuce, which you might not think is good, but it's really a new (for me) thing! Turning a whole head of lettuce into a cup and a half of sauce - cool!


Lettuce sauce - makes about 1.5 cups
1 egg yolk
1 small head of Boston Bibb lettuce, cleaned and roughly torn
1 t. capers, rinsed
juice of 1 lemon
up to 1 small handful parsley
2 green onions (whites and greens)
Optional: 1 small clove garlic
Optional: About 1-2 T. fresh basil or dill
0.5 t. dijon mustard (don't be tempted to add any more, or it'll overwhelm the sauce. less would be fine too, but we're taking advantage of the natural emulsifiers in the mustard, put at least a drop in)
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper

1. Combine everything EXCEPT the olive oil and S&P in the food processor. Process until smooth.
2. While the machine is still running, slowly pour the oil through the feed tube.
3. Season with S&P and chill. It's okay to use right away, but will thicken a little with some time in the fridge.

Poached potatoes, radishes, and cod
6 c. water
1/3 c. white wine
1.5 T. peppercorns
3 California bay leaves
2 t. salt
2-4 potatoes (I used 4 medium red potatoes)
1 bunch (6-10) radishes
3 shallots
1-1.5 lbs. cod fillets
lemon slices and parsley for garnish

1. Slice the potatoes, shallots, and radishes; I used the slicing blade on the food processor, so it was really quick!
2. Combine in a very large pan everything except the fish and the garnish, cover.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to medium-low, and place the fish fillets on top of the vegetables, submerged in the cooking liquid (you may need to make a little room for the fish.)
5. Simmer for about 7 minutes with the lid on. My fillets were about an inch thick at the thickest, if yours are thinner, check on the fish after 5 minutes.


Make a plate with more lettuce on the side, the veggies, the fish on top of the veggies, a generous amount of lettuce sauce on everything, and lemon and parsey on top of that.

Variations: I think the sauce would also be great with some dill instead/in addition to the parsley. A number of root veggies could be used instead/in addition to what's listed: carrots, turnips, rutabaga, etc. Also I think cauliflower florets would be great in the poach. For the fish, cod works particularly well but I think tilapia, catfish, flounder, halibut would all be good.