Bacon-Wrapped Fish

I think I am started to get the idea now: you can make any dish or meal tastier by wrapping it in bacon. In the past, I avoided bacon as much as possible, because of its fat content and based on the general idea that bacon is bad for you. After reading a lot about Paleo, it seems like bacon really isn’t that bad after all. I still wouldn’t eat it every single day but I am happy to enjoy a little bit, once or twice a week.

This week, I wanted to cook an orange roughy fillet we had in the freezer. I already used one at the beginning of January and, although I liked the last recipe, I also wanted to try something new. We happened to have some uncooked bacon in the fridge from the chili recipe for the Paleo poutine. I definitely didn’t want it to go to waste so I started looking for a recipe involving fish and bacon. I had to look up orange roughy to figure out what kind of fish it was similar to. When I understood that it was almost like tilapia or cod (basically a mild white fish), it made my search much easier.

I finally stumbled upon the simplest of recipes on the Kraft website. I simplified the recipe as my husband and I can easily share a fillet instead of eating one each. You can definitely adjust it to your level of appetite. The idea was simple: put a little bit of salt and pepper on your fillet, wrap it with 2 slices of bacon (the way you would wrap ribbon on a gift), sear it in a pan for 3 minutes on each side, then put it in the oven at 350°F for 15 minutes. When there’s only a few minutes left to the baking, slice a lemon and cook the slices in the pan (with the leftover bacon fat). Once the fish is cooked and flaky, put the lemon on top and you’re done!

I made a super quick salad to go with it: romaine lettuce with chopped oranges and apples. I whipped up a quick vinaigrette with lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. As you can see on the picture, I did serve the vinaigrette in a special spoon, not to be fancy but to avoid it getting all over the fish. The final touch was a shred of fresh Parmesan on top of everything.

I was very pleased with the final result. The bacon & fish were cooked perfectly and the salad was filling but still refreshing. It felt fancy enough to make me proud to serve it to my husband but without spending too much time in the kitchen.