Many times, when you bake fish, it comes out a little dry so you typically look for some kind of sauce to spruce it up and help get some moisture back into it. I always thought I was using the wrong pan or maybe I cooked it too long.
I picked up a copy of Culinary Expressions by Norman Leclair. He’s a local chef that once owned the Red Rooster Tavern in North Kingstown Rhode Island. This was a great restaurant. Always perfect meals served with style and flair. It was a place where Liberace would visit when he played at the Warwick Musical Theater back in the 80’s and 90’s.
In any case, the book is great and still available on Amazon. It’s well worth having in your cookbook collection.
In it, there are over twenty baked fish recipes. After cooking a few, I came to realize one important technique… Most of them included in the ingredients ½ cup of wine, water or fish stock. After placing the fish in a casserole dish (I use a black frying pan) and topping the fish with whatever is in the recipe, he suggests pouring the wine, water or fish stock around the fish. When baking, most of this liquid bakes off instead of drawing the moisture from the fish.
The liquid is purley sacrificial. Very seldom am I left with any liquid when finished cooking (this usually happens when I don’t measure). The fish is moist and flakey and perfect every time.
