Main Dishes
Fish filets -- wash & press/pat dry
Green onions -- chopped (about 1 Tbl/serving)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
Other seasonings, as desired. Don't over do this -- pick one, at most two each time -- and use sparingly, either at the very last moment (dash shoyu; sesame seeds, lemon pepper) or when serving (minced or very thinly sliced pickled ginger, lemon pepper, Cajun seasoning or other hot sauce). I often don't use any extras -- I like tit plain.
Begin by starting a pot of rice, timed so you start cooking the fish when the rice cooker clicks off & you have exactly 5 minutes until serving. Cook any veggies/side dishes & prep the table either earlier or in the time between starting the rice cooker and when it clicks off -- dinner has to be ready to go before cooking the fish.
When dinner's about to be served, cook the fish: Heat oil in a saute pan until quite hot. Sprinkle into the oil: ground pepper, salt, then a generous bit of green onions. Before the oil begins to smoke, add the filets & sear/cook them 1-2 minutes; lift out the filets, sprinkle more pepper-salt-green onions into the pan, return the filets to the pan (uncooked side down) and sear/cook 1-2 minutes more, & serve immediately.
(I usually use mahimahi, but cod would be great, too -- any white fish, really).
The green onions on the outside of the fish should be seared dark green, almost black, the edges should be beginning to brown, and fish should be just barely cooked through in the middle. Remember that fish continues to cook a bit after being removed from the heat.
The filets will splatter if they haven't been dried enough.
Don't crowd the pan -- each filet must lie flat and needs a bit of space around it to cook properly; if they're too big for the pan, cook them one at a time. Tom and I typically split one filet to make the cooking easier.