Fish Roasted With Lime

Last January, we posted about our "cookbook project" where we would attempt to make a new recipe from one of our many cookbooks at least once a month. Our January recipe was delicious... and then we never did it again. For New Years Eve, we decided on a quiet night at home instead of going out. Since A decided to cook something new for dinner, we were able to close out the year with one more cookbook project!

December's recipe was Fish Roasted with Lime from the "Best Ever Greek" cookbook we got from my parents for Christmas this year. It was a really healthy way to end the year. Alongside the fish A made brussels sprouts with chestnuts and sage, something he's made a few times before.

To make the fish, you need:

Some of the ingredients for the fish dish
- Fish fillets (they recommend 2 lb, 4 oz of white fish fillets like flounder; we had frozen flounder, no idea how much this cost but I estimate $15?)
- Salt and pepper (we already had this, $0)
- 1 lime ($0.33)
- Olive oil (we already had this, $0)
- Large onion ($0.82)
- Garlic cloves ($0.25)
- Pickled jalapeno chilies (can cost $1.50, used about half, $0.75)
- Fresh cilantro ($0.50)

The fish part of the meal cost around $18. The brussels sprouts portion of the meal cost about $6.40. At a total of around $25 for 2 people, it's much cheaper than anything we would have gotten eating out on New Years Eve when all the prices are jacked up.

Cooking the brussels sprouts portion of dinner
To make the fish, you season the fish, heat up the onion/garlic mixture, put the fish in a roasting pan with the mix, chilies and cilantro, roast it in the oven for about 20 minutes, and that's it. A said it was a pretty straightforward recipe.

Finished product - Fish roasted with lime with a side of brussels sprouts with chestnuts and sage
We liked the fish. It would have come out better with fresh fish instead of the fish from our freezer but we are on a mission to empty our freezer of all the old stuff we have stockpiled there, and this allowed us to finish off those flounder fillets. (The "best by" date was 10/2008...) The onion, garlic, jalapeno and cilantro mixture was really fantastic. The fish was a little fishy in parts and had been freezerburned, but the relish topping did a great job covering that up.

We were confused as to why this recipe was in a Greek cookbook. It didn't taste Greek to us at all, at least not anything like the food we had in Greece. If I didn't know this came from a Greek cookbook, I would have assumed it was from a Mexican cookbook. I think it's due to the jalapenos and lime, which I associate much more with Mexican cooking, and have never had in Greek food. That was just odd.

We would consider making this again, but we would definitely not use flounder that was at its best over 3 years ago!