Halibut Cheeks with Masoor Dal Tadka

Even though I am retired and have long stretches of time at the house, I still find many nights that I am looking for something quick to get on the table. My days these days seem to be filled with renovation and remodeling tasks. By the time dinner time rolls around, I don't want to make a huge investment in time in the kitchen, yet I do want a healthy and tasty dinner. By quick, I mean something on the order of 15-20 minutes of active work in the kitchen.

To help with this, I am trying to keep a few quick fish portions in the freezer. That is, when I buy fish at the seafood merchant, I try to buy 3 or 4 meals of fish and freeze that which I don't want to cook right away. Which brings us to the halibut cheeks that I IQFed a few weeks ago. IQF is a food service term for Individually Quick Frozen.

What it means in my home setting is that I spread halibut cheeks out on a sheet tray (coated with pan spray) so that none of them touch and freeze them. Once the cheeks freeze hard, I pluck them off the sheet tray and put them in a freezer bag. In this way, I can pull out as few or as many as I want for a meal. And because they are so thin, I can either defrost them under running water in 20 minutes or so, or I can leave them in the refrigerator overnight. In either case, they are ready to cook quickly.

Halibut Cheeks with Masoor Dal Tadka

Our local grocery has a vast bulk section and as I was wandering through last trip to the store, I spied a bin of red split lentils which I know by their Hindi name as masoor dal. I brought some home for the pantry because they too are a quick cooking food, great for when you don't have a lot of time to cook. A lot of folks use a pressure cooker to have the dal ready very quickly, but even without a pressure cooker, they are done in less than an hour.

One of my very favorite dal preparations is called a tadka or "tempering" in which spices are warmed in hot oil and then mixed into the cooked dal. So I made a quick masoor dal tadka for our halibut cheeks by cooking onion, garlic, ginger, and cumin in a bit of oil until the cumin seeds started to pop. For spices, most people use garam masala, the pseudo-generic Indian spice mix, but I tend to individual spices ground at the moment in my spice grinder: coriander, cumin, fennel, cayenne, and mehti (fenugreek seeds). I stir in the spices and then add the masoor dal. I add water as necessary and cook the lentils until they are tender and falling apart a bit, but still have some texture.

For the tadka, I heat a little ghee or oil and add whole cumin and mustard seeds. When they start popping, I drop in a touch of cayenne powder and turn off the heat. Then I pour this mix over the lentils and they are ready to serve.

All this was done in advance of cooking the fish and while the fish was finishing on its second side, I sautéed a bit of baby spinach for a garnish. One hour start to finish is a pretty quick dinner in my book, especially when most of the time was spent having a glass of Pinot Noir with Ann while the lentils simmered away gently.