"Clean" as a whistle: oven roasted flounder and bok choy

Ragazzi, Annalena promised you all a recipe for an easy dessert, and as Mozart wrote  "Sie kommt... sie kommt."    You all know, however, that when Annalena has breaking news from the kitchen, she interrupts her regular programming to let her listeners  - or viewers - know.    And as last night's dinner qualifies as (i) "clean,"  (ii) healthy  (iii) easy  (iv) quick  and (v) tasty, she has to stage an intervention.  You add to this that when she posted a picture of it, a group that could not be more diverse responded to it, and the lady MUST act. 

You will probably have to do some shopping for this recipe,  but the items are all relatively easy to find.  So, in breaking with her tradition, Annalena is going to first, provide you with a shopping list, since some of the responders to that original recipe  are in fact of a "type"  (wink, wink, nudge nudge), who need this kind of thing ( you know to whom she refers, don't you?)...

You will need

A scallion  (buy a bunch of them and use the rest for something else, or steal one from a friend)
cilantro (MAYBE... see below)
limes  - 3 or 4 of them
low salt soy sauce
rice vinegar, the unseasoned kind (more below)
fresh ginger
a pound of baby bok choy (again, more comments below)
a pound of flounder filets

You should also have the usual salt and pepper, and either dry white wine, or sake' in the house.

Now, cilantro is one of those things which can, and does, inspire great strife amongst Annalena's army.  There are the afficionados (like Annalena), and the haters (like the Guyman).  You CAN leave the cilantro out of this recipe if you like.  Annalena made the sauce, took half of it and put cilantro in it, and left it out of the rest, with chopped cilantro on the side.  The  Guyman did add some and found it pleasing.

You are going to have to squeeze the limes.  This may be Annalena's least favorite task in the world.  She has every conceivable gadget for squeezing limes, and still hates doing it.  But squeeze you must.  You will need about a third of a cup of lime juice .  The 3 or 4 limes is more than enough, but once you try squeezing them, and realize you need Ironman hands to do it, you will be grateful.

Of "low salt" soy sauce.  It sometimes seems, to Annalena, that this is almost redundant.  The pure, ridiculously salty soy sauce she grew up with (does anyone remember "La Choy?") probably still exists, but she never sees it.  And you should have soy sauce in your home anyway.

Rice vinegar is much more accessible than you may imagine.   Indeed, it is fairly ubiquitous, and you can find it in flavors, just like other vinegars.  Avoid them.  She will get in trouble here, but Annalena finds flavored vinegars an abomination.  So, too, most flavored oils.  Check the label very carefully.  Make sure you're not getting, for example, rice vinegar flavored with ginger, or something like that (rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are the same). 

Everyone should have a chunk of fresh ginger in their house.  If you don't, go and get some today.  NOW.  SOFORT. 

"Baby" bok choi is one of those modifiers that means nothing. Annalena had two different "baby" bok chois.  One was as big as her fist, the other, as big as her two fists.   Here's one where you use what you have.  If you have small ones, you'll cut them in half.  Larger ones?  Increase to three, or four. 

Of wine, of course, the usual rules apply:  use what you would drink.  So, too, with sake'.  If you were to use white wine, this will be good,  although you may not feel it's all that authentic.  You make the call, and see how much shopping you want to do.

OK. NOW TO COOK.  Let's first turn the oven to 400 and make our sauce.  We do this by slicing that scallion thin, and putting it in a bowl with the cilantro, a quarter cup, chopped, if you're using.  Add the lime juice you secured with much cursing, three tablespoons of the soy sauce,  and 2 of the vinegar.  Chop up a tablespoon of fresh ginger, as fine as you can, and dump it in, and finally add 1.5 tablespoons of vegetable oil (She knows... it's not on the shopping list.  You have oil in your house.  Quiet.)  Stir this all together, and taste it.  Add salt, or pepper as you see fit, and put it aside.

Now, let's attack that bokchoi, and cut it into halves, thirds, or quarters, as the size dictates.  You want to get the whole pound of them into a pan at once, if you can.  If not, you'll do this in batches, and it won't be hard.  Pour two tablespoons of oil into the pan, and when the oil begins to ripple or, if you can "smell" the oil (hard to explain, but you know the scent), put the vegetables in, cut side down, at medium heat.    You want these to sear to brown, and it will take upwards of three to five minutes.  While that is happening, portion out your flounder, if you need to (at least four pieces), and pat it dry.  Then, sprinkle it with salt and pepper.    Let it sit.

When the bok choi has browned, turn it over, and take the pan off the heat for the next step.  That next step, is adding the wine or sake' directly to the hot pan.  Keep it away from your face, in case of "back splash."  And now, put the fish right on top of the vegetables, and put the thing into the oven,  for  8 minutes if the fish is small, or ten if the pieces are big.  That will be more than enough time for it to prep. 

Protect your hands, and take the pan out of the oven.  Now, this is best served in bowls, and this is how you do it.  Get a flipper or paddle of some kind, and lift out portions of the vegetables and fish.  When that's all been divided up, pour the remaining sake'/wine at the SIDE of the bowl, so it drops to the bottom .  And now, take that wonderful sauce you made, and spoon it over your fish.

You can make this in less time than it took you to read it.  And, let Annalena give you some more information.  When she originally got this recipe, it said "serves four."  She believes that "hobbits" should follow four.   These are NOT big portions.  And since each one has only 260 calories, they won't.  So that whole pan of fish and veggies has 1040 calories.  She thinks you can have a double portion.  And some rice. 

So, ragazzi, go and make this.  Get your Asian ingredients and feel noble about the healthy, clean food you just made.  And then you won't feel so bad when we have our cranberry cobbler.