A Fish Dish for Less

by Carolina Santos-Neves
on 02/24/11 at 03:00 PM

Fishintomato2.24.11 This week I had a home-cooked dinner at my friend Mariel's place using Epi's Halibut with Hazelnut Romesco, some roasted Brussels sprouts, and chocolate chickpea cake a la mode. The main course was hearty, incredibly flavorful, and easy, but the price tag ran a bit higher than my usual weeknight dinner. The fresh halibut alone cost almost $20, and as we finished the meal, we agreed that it was a recipe worth making again for a group dinner, but not at this price tag.

Over dessert we exchanged ideas on how to better make this dish budget-friendly. Mariel and her mother have a website called Feast on the Cheap, so I deferred to her when it came to feast-ifying the meal. Below are her five suggestions to make the dish friendly and frugal without skimping on taste.

1. Swap four 6-ounce halibut filets ($36.73) for four 7-ounce tilapia filets, the workhorse of white fish ($13.98).

2. Use a jar of roasted red peppers ($2.99) in place of a jar of the harder-to-find piquillo peppers ($6.99).

3. Instead of smoked paprika ($4.49), a gourmet, novelty spice, use regular old paprika (a cupboard classic and only 89 cents).

4. If you're a frequent baker and your freezer is perpetually stocked with walnuts, sub those in for chopped hazelnuts, and save a trip to the market.

5. This dish pairs wonderfully with brown or white rice, so skip the potatoes if you don't have any on-hand.

Total savings: at least $30.35, not including the cost of swapping stock items like walnuts and rice in lieu of hazelnuts and potatoes.

All prices from FreshDirect.com and Amazon.com .

Do you have any frugal substitutions you use on a regular basis?

Tagged with: Recipes
11:38:43 AM on

Fish is always a sticky subject, but I've found that the US farm-raised Tilapia is significantly cheaper than Halibut and is on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "best choice" safe list. Tilapia, when farmed per US standards, actually produces more protein than it takes to grow it and does really well in that sort of environment. That being said, the wonderful thing about this particular recipe is that it can be adapted in a number of ways to suit different personal tastes, budgets and preferences.

10:25:21 AM on

Tilapia is farm-raised fish, fed with corn, produced primarily in China and Egypt and according to a study in 2008 cited in Wikipedia, may be worse for your heart than bacon or hamburger. I'm surprised that Epicurious would recommend this fish. Acording to our fish monger, the Little Fish Company in Auburn CA., "friends don't let friends eat farmed fish"! Cheap is not always better. And you can wait until red peppers are in season and get them in your CSA box for pennies. The recipe for Broiled Grouper with Romesco Sauce on this site is killer, easy and fast, and it uses traditional almonds rather than expensive hazelnuts which are a pain to use. Sorry to sound so critical but a number of points in this article pushed my buttons!

04:41:39 PM on

What a dish! Thanks for posting...

08:21:52 PM on

I've made that recipe and I would imagine that tillapia would work just fine. I agree with the previous poster that you cannot swap regular for smoked paprika. No way. Also, Trader Joes sells roasted piquillo peppers for the same price as roasted red peppers.

07:06:39 PM on

While I agree with most of the tips, I just don't think regular paprika even comes close to the intense, smoky flavor of smoked paprika. I understand watching the budget, but I think smoked is worth paying for!

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