Ann Kalen of Fullerton is a great cook and hostess and living proof that you don’t have to use complicated recipes to serve delicious food.
Case in point: her crazy simple fish pie from Jamie Oliver’s “5 Ingredients Quick and Easy Food” (Flatiron Books, $35).
“We bought a camper about six months before COVID,” she recalled. “I wanted to cook, but the camper has very little prep space. I needed to find recipes that didn’t use 10,000 ingredients and too many pots and pans.
“I started watching Jamie Oliver’s show, and I thought, I have to get this book. It’s exactly what I need,” she said. “He does a lot of these one-pan deals. The one that I keep making all the time for company is this fish one, because everybody raves about it.”
Kalen usually substitutes Chilean sea bass for the smoked haddock, if she can find it, or halibut. “Any mild fish would work,” she advised.
Her cheese of choice is cheddar and mozzarella mix.
“You make it all in one pan. I love my cast iron pan. I use it for almost everything. That’s why I got his book, because I had that pan,” she said. “I got it for camping. I couldn’t live without it. You don’t have to do anything to it except use it. If you don’t use it, it rusts. And it doesn’t have to be an expensive one. I got mine in Walmart, and it stays beautiful and cleans up in one minute. You have to oil it when you first use it. You can use it on the stove or the oven, the campfire or your grill.
“Usually, I serve the fish with a little salad with some citrus. The phyllo dough – you’re tearing it up and wrapping it around the fish, so you don’t have to be precise with it, but be careful that you don’t let it dry out. Just keep it covered with a damp towel,” Kalen recommended. “You can get six pieces of fish in one cast iron pan, which is more than the 14 ounces in the recipe.”
Kalen has had similar success with other recipes in the book.
“We like his easy sausage carbonara,…
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