Pompano Papillot

The next recipe in the Columbia Cookbook called for a new-to-us ingredient - pompano - a variety of fish.

I was able to find one at our local Whole Foods. Unfortunately, they only had one; this recipe would have been better with two. Fortunately, we had it twice more - with snapper and grouper - so we know what it's like with more fish to sauce ratio. Note also that this really isn't a sauce; I'm not sure how to describe it! Looking at the ingredients I thought it might turn into something similar to a cream puff, but it didn't. I guess you could call it a very rich, seafood-filled dough. Try it yourself and tell me how you'd describe it!

Start by making a very thick white sauce with onions, shrimp and crawfish - and eggs.

Layer the "sauce" with the fish

Wrap in parchment and bake - for much longer the the recipe states.

Serve it as part of your fancy, gourmet dinner.

The snapper version used lobster instead of crawfish, and foil instead of parchment paper.

Grouper was my favorite variation.

Note also there was another new ingredient that took some research to find - Sauterne. You could just substitute apple juice or peach nectar for the two tablespoons used as a seasoning, but my chef likes to follow the instructions precisely whenever possible. We also won't have to make another trip to the store if we find a corkscrew necessary in the future!