Looking to cook up something tasty and a little out of the ordinary to break up another long week of sheltering in place, I pulled out all the stops tonight to make baked flounder with a fresh take on comeback sauce, a pretty spectacular mac salad (see my next post) and shichimi togarashi broccoli. It definitely fit my bill for a good quarantine meal… it gave me something to do for more than an hour, it was tasty and indulgent while still having some vaguely healthy components, and it used mostly ingredients already stocked in my pantry, fridge, and freezer.

To make the fish, I dipped flounder filets into a mix of a few tablespoons of lemon juice and half a stick of melted butter, then dipped in a blend of panko crumbs and vegetable furikake (a Japanese seasoning blend with sesame seeds, strips of dried seaweed, salt, and other things). I drizzled the filets with a little olive oil and baked for about 15 minutes at 350F.

To serve with the fish, I thought about making a regular tartar sauce, but ended up putting together something much more exciting on the fly… I’ll call it kimchi comeback sauce! While traveling for work in Mississippi, I had a chance to eat some of the best food of my life, and I developed a taste for comeback sauce, a spicy remoulade-type condiment perfect for slathering in fried catfish, shrimp, etc. Today I put an Asian twist on it and ended up with a spicy, funky sauce that I’ll definitely be making again:

• 1 cup mayo
• 1/2 c. kimchi, diced
• 1 dill pickle spear, diced
• Splash kimchi brine
• 1 tsp Thai sweet chili sauce
• 1-2 tsp shichimi togarashi
• Pinch salt 
• Few drops of fish sauce

Mix all ingredients together; refrigerate until chilled through. 

Finally, I steamed up some broccoli seasoned with shichimi togarashi to serve on the side… had to have something green to go with all the rich components!