We seem to have broken our wet spell here in the Pacific NW so it felt great to be cooking a springy meal. It's halibut season so cheap, wild halibut is available all over. As a side note of honesty, I've never cooked halibut so I was initially intimated by the recipe but it turns out you cook it like any other fish (duh).
I have several notes about this recipe that seem to be better told in bullet points:
Burnt hazelnuts are delicious and the crust on the fish was great.
I wanted to note that I actually found shallots at the grocery store and they are great. They really are a toned done version of a red or white onion and I quite liked them.
I forgot to take a photo of the apple "salsa" prior to adding it. The salsa was cooked in hazelnut oil which left a coating on the apples I quite liked.
Eric did not detect the dry mustard or dijon mustard used in the recipe. Fascinating since he has a really strong aversion to it. He noted that everything blended so well together that he couldn't pick out one flavor of anything. Job well done I'd say.
Things I learned from this recipe:
Hazelnut oil exists. I hope to find other ways to cook with it because it's a little pricey.
I learned how to peel hazelnuts. I boiled a pot of water, put a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in the water, dumped the hazelnuts in, boiled for a few minutes and then transferred them to a cold bowl of water which made them easy to peel.
