An Environmental Ceramics Inc. fish baker designed and manufactured by
Taylor and Ng circa mid 1970s was used for this recipe.
Win Ng was a Chinese American sculptor, industrial designer, and illustrator whose early career focused on abstract work influenced by
Peter Voulkos. He is best known for opening Environmental Ceramics which manufactured pottery sold in the department store Taylor and Ng he co-founded with Spaulding Taylor.
The interior is glazed, exterior is unglazed, there is a small hole in tail for steam to escape.
I started with one whole cleaned
pompano 1 1/2 pound fish and cooked shrimp to stuff interior. Shelly of
Shelly's Seafood in Homosassa suggested I try pompano this week. What a good recommendation, thanks so much.
Place shrimp in fish cavity and drizzle with Vietnamese garlic and red chili sauce.
Chop one shallot, half cup or more of cilantro, one inch square of ginger, and juice two limes.
Place stuffed pompano in ceramic fish baker.
Add one cup dry white wine, lime juice, and cilantro, ginger, and shallots sprinkled over the top. Put cover on fish baker and place in cold oven and set temp to 400 F, cook for 25 minutes. Immediately remove from oven.
Here is cooked pompano fish.
Remove pompano from baking dish and reserve liquid in fish baker.
Remove shrimp stuffing and set aside, and peel skin from fish if desired. Skin is paper thin on pompano fish and little to no scales are present.
The BEST FISH I ever ate. Pompano is a mild buttery flavored white fleshed fish. I placed fish on plate with some of the shrimp stuffing, some rice and drizzled with juices from fish cooker, and a few black olives. The juices were superb drizzled over the top. There is
one of these vintage cookers on Etsy (not my listing), if you love fish, get it and use it. You won't be disappointed using it. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.
Hello Linda:
ReplyDeleteThe ceramic fish baker looks so stylish and, even more wonderful, seems to cook fish to perfection. How lovely to have something of beauty which is good to look at and also functions splendidly.
Even though it is before breakfast! I am drooling. That sounds so good, and i love the ceramic fish baker.
ReplyDeleteNice fish....It's making me hungry!
ReplyDeleteBefore I became a potter I used to collect Taylor and Ng mugs. They're packed away in the shed....somewhere!
That's a great piece, fun and functional. I'm getting hungry too, is it okay to have fish for breakfast?
ReplyDeleteGreat post...how you took the time to take pics while that fish was waiting to be eaten...you have much more (something, can't think of the adjective) than I do! That fish looks so good, and the baker is really a great idea too!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of it, because the pics look so good, but weren't there a lot of small bones inside the fish? Bones is the reason why I cook only salmon filets (skinless and boneless). I think I'll try the cilantro, ginger, shallot, etc. topping, though. It would go great with salmon. Thanks for the idea, Linda.
ReplyDeleteoh this post makes me hungry! I have never eaten the pompano. In Florida do you eat the fish often?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the Midas Touch post. It is very informative, educational, and FUN! Thank you so much, Linda!
I'm always amazed at how often you eat fish. I probably eat it less than once a month. Of course, I live a long way from the sea and never acquired a taste for fish. My mom would only fry fish in corn meal and I hated it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fine ceramic fish and so fun to cook fish in a fish *smile*.
ReplyDeleteHugs
A beautiful baker and a lovely recipe (as usual!)...
ReplyDeleteomg that looks so good! Jeff grilled a whole pompano a couple of months ago. We bought it at the Asian market in Greensboro. I had never had it before and it was very good. All the flavors you added to your recipe are our favorites. I think the next trip into the city we will get another fish and give it a try.
ReplyDeleteHi Jane and Lance, thanks, I cant' believe how long I've had this baker and have hardly ever used it. I'll be using it more often now that I remembered.
ReplyDeleteHi Jennie, thanks, I thought poached fish would be tasteless but it's really good.
Hi Barbara, thanks, I just keep my camera on the counter and quickly take the photos, some are a little out of focus as sometimes it's hard to hold the fish and the camera at the same time.
Hi Gigi, thanks, this fish doesn't have many small bones. There is a trick to taking the bones out on lots of fish especially if the head is left on the head can be pulled towards the body cavity and many times all the bones will come out all in one piece still connected to the spine. We prefer to eat the skin on salmon as near the skin is the oils which contain much of the vitamins in the fish needed for joint lubrication and help with arthritis. Most of the fish we get are fillets, filleted by the fish market, but this one happened to be whole.
Hi Sapphire, thanks, yes we eat fish quite often as the fish market here is really good and fresh and the prices are reasonable. There are many varieties of pompano, sometimes also called jack fish.
Hi Ms. Sparrow, thanks, my mom only cooked fish sticks that were store bought. Ha. One of the reasons I learned how to cook and I have always been adventurous with tasting new foods. That and fish is so good for us; All the fish we get is caught and not farm raised; I like fact we are eating a food that hasn't been farm raised and isn't full of antibiotics, hormones and grain fed with unnatural foods like most animals are raised nowadays.
Hi Elna, thanks, yes this was an excellent way to cook the fish and so delicious.
Hi Julia, thanks, this baker is so easy to use and a nice look to it too.
Hi Michele, thanks, you could probably poach a fish in one of your beautiful casseroles too, not sure if it would need a hole for the steam to escape though. I'm going to try poaching some other fish too. I saved the juices and we had it for lunch again today. I just put the juice on top of the fish and heated it in the microwave. The red garlic chili sauce was hot by itself but mixed with the rest of the ingredients it was just right.
Hi Suzi, thanks, I never knew about Taylor and Ng even though I lived in San Francisco in the 70s. Ha. I just noticed the name on the bottom of this baker I've had for years this week. How cool you collected their mugs. It's kind of neat to learn about someone who made a career from pottery in a unique way.
ReplyDeleteHI Lori, thanks, yes fish for breakfast, you know how they have those movies where the folks come in early in the morning with a fresh fish caught in a lake and they have eggs and pan fried fish, it tastes so much better eaten right after being freshly caught.