Low-Carb Lesson #15: Broiled Flounder, Buttery Broccoli, & Mushroom Salad

Written by Di Bauer November 22, 2001, Updated by Andrew DiMino July 18, 2016

Low Carb Cooking 101

Tonight’s meal is a nice change of pace, and proves once again that neither low carb food nor seafood has to be boring.

Two pounds may sound like a lot of fish, but I’ve found that it takes more fish to fill me up than it does beef, pork, or chicken. Maybe it’s because fish generally has less calories per portion than do chicken or beef. And while the recipe specifies flounder fillets, any firm, white fish fillets can be used if flounder isn’t on sale.

If you can, buy lemons and limes when they are on sale. You can juice them and freeze the juice in ice cube trays for any recipes that call for fresh lemon or lime juice. The fresh juice is much better tasting than the bottled kind!

You can also grate the zest from the fruit and freeze it as well. You can find lemon zest in the spice aisle of your grocery, but I’ve never seen packaged lime zest.

You can buy a special tool called a “zester” at any good specialty store or cooking shop, but I have also seen them at Walmart. You really don’t need one, though. You can use any hand grater as long as you’re careful how you hold the fruit and don’t grate your fingertips along with it. You want to grate only the colored peel and not grate into the pith underneath the skin as the pith is quite bitter.

Be sure you buy unsweetened coconut! It is not usually in the baking aisle with the sweetened coconut. I have found unsweetened coconut in the frozen foods section of my local grocery, and most good health food stores carry it as well. Even if the package says “unsweetened,” read the ingredients on the label and make sure that there’s no sugars hidden in it.

Fresh ginger is actually the unprocessed ginger root, and it will be in the produce section of the grocery. Buy a nice-sized chunk because you can wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and freeze it for up to 6 months.

Fresh ginger needs to be peeled before you grate it. I just peel an end of the root without removing it from the whole root and then use the unpeeled portion of the root as a “handle” when I grate it. Doing it this way has saved my knuckles many a scrape.

For you novice cooks, ‘dry mustard’ is not those dried up bits of regular mustard that you have around the top of your jarred or bottled mustard. Dry mustard is a powder and is found in the spice aisle.

Here’s This Evening’s Low-Carb Recipes

• Broiled Flounder with Zesty Lime Cream
• Steamed Broccoli with Butter
  

• Romaine and Mushroom Salad with Lemony French Dressing

Here’s The Gameplan

Set the table.

Cook and drain the bacon. Melt the butter. Set aside.

Cover a broiler pan with foil. Wash and fish fillet and pat them dry. Place the fish fillets on the foil and set aside.

Prepare all the fresh foods. Juice and zest the lemon and lime, grate the ginger, seed and chop the tomatoes, and slice the mushrooms.

Turn on the broiler.

Make the Lemony Fresh Dressing for the salad and put the salads together, but don’t add the dressing until it’s time to serve dinner. Put the salads and the dressing on the table.

Make the basting sauce for the fish. Baste the fish with the sauce and put them in the boiler to begin cooking.

Immediately steam the broccoli spears in a basket on the stove top.

While the broccoli and fish are cooking, make the Lime Cream for the fish.

Drain the cooked broccoli and drizzle with warm butter. You can then put the spears on the dinner plates. Add the cooked fish fillets and garnish the with the Lime Cream.

TURN OFF THE BROILER BEFORE YOU SIT DOWN!! (My husband said I had to add this since I almost always forget to do it).

Take the plates to the table and sit down to a well-deserved, relaxing meal.