plantmanager said:I love dill, and will have to grow some. I'd love a recipe for the fish and potato stew with dill, if you have one, Philip. I could probably make my own and it would be good, but if you have a recipe, I'd love to have yours.
No problem, Karen - This was very popular with French soldiers and sailors because it could be made right on a ship utilizing a variety of fish being added into a simplistic potato stew. Even English armies would feature a French Cook.
French Fish & Potato StewCod
Potatoes
Garlic paste with thyme and fennel, lemon, salt, pepper
Chicken broth
Make the paste first, then add to slow-boiling chicken broth, and stir in potatoes and fish.
Buttered Toast/Baguette can be used to sop up juices
You will not go wrong with the above - salt & pepper is to taste and texture of potatoes depends on how long you want to stew them.
Immediate Improvements
Similar to a French cook, I'm highly improvisational, based on what the family has in the kitchen and what flavors I know balance out well. Let's start with the broth... Canned chicken broth is the crappiest possible chicken broth. Two alternatives would improve the above immediately.
Real Chicken or Turkey Broth instead of canned.. If you happened to have some chicken parts/carcasses, skin, this is always going to be better. Almost as though you were making homemade traditional chicken soup. Use broth from this to dramatically improve the above.
Seafood/fish-based broth.. To be truer to history, we're using any spare seafood/fish parts, skin, heads. Utilizing more Vietnamese & some Italian influences, we'll add Tomato and Dill to make it just a tad tartier. Include all fish parts to extract maximum flavor, nutrition, and calcium. Process and pick out the bones, skin, excess tomato skin & seeds as preferred before serving.
Garnish with fresh lemon juice, chopped parsley, green onions, black pepper, and fresh dill (coarse or finely chopped). In both cases, be sure to use sufficient garlic as it will pair with seafood well. Onions & scallions do not hurt terribly, other than adding sweetness, and are a passable alternative in the absence of garlic.
Chaudre or Cream
If you find that you have a particularly salty & fishy broth or very fishy-fish/seafood parts, we can fix this by "Chowderizing" it or creaming it. Both will work with dill.
In a separate pot, just heat butter, milk, flour to form a thick
roux. NOW we're going to add it into our stew, and it will essentially be a Fish & Potato stew turned into a chowder. If you do not want to do a
roux you can cheat and do cream. I've tried both in heavy seafood based-sauces, and it's delicious... NOT healthy, but... yeah delicious.
@pod Thanks for the encouragement, I can see an enthusiastic dill fan right away. Indeed, cures for cancers and diseases are found in nature.. The cure for Malaria, for example, is found in a tree bark/root. I definitely believe plants serve some purpose for other life forms (either to promote or deter certain organisms) and that nature has its own balance that mankind cannot match.... and yet, we are destroying it all, overbreeding, greed, waste, pollution, etc etc... :(
@plantmanager And also, if you simply look up Vietnamese Fish and Dill on Google under images, you'll see the degree of applicability of dill to fish.. It's used in solid dishes, as well as stews and soups. it works perfectly fine with the basic French Fish & Potato form. The Vietnamese version is highly complex. many vietnamese styles pair well with French cuisine, due to both cultures featuring strong flavors and fresh herbs used to balance out the flavors.
