Necessary Items:
The first step in to creating a restaurant quality dish is to start with restaurant quality ingredients. The fish is the easy step, the next is to have a quality high-heat cooking oil (such as a grape seed oil, or rice oil). These oils contain zero trans-fat and no cholesterol, but won't start to smoke until they reach higher temperatures than average oils. If you use grape seed or rice oil, your pan will get hot enough to put a good sear on the fish, without any worries over bitter flavor from burnt oil.
Kanaloa recommends Salute Santé oil (available for purchase at our store), which we offer in lemon, chili, and straight grapeseed oil for you to enjoy with your halibut.
Make sure you have a good, heavy-bottomed steel pan in which to sear your fish in.
After you have these very important pieces, you will now need 2 more important ingredients, kosher salt, and cracked pepper, white or black works fine.
Preparation:
When you get your fish home, take it out of the bag, and place it belly side down on a thin layer of paper towels to dry off. The dryer the fish the better the sear. If you leave moisture on your fish, the halibut will just steam in the pan and not have a very good texture. So dry it well!
After your fish is dry, pre-heat your pan over med-high heat, 4-6 minutes. Add about 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan. When you add the oil it should move around your pan quickly, reacting like water. If it sits in the middle in a slow moving puddle, your pan is not hot enough yet. Wait until the oil moves quickly around the bottom of the pan.
After your pan and oil are hot and your fish is dry, season both sides of the dry fish evenly with salt and pepper. Pull the pan off the direct heat, and gently add the fish (belly side down) to the pan. Place the pan back over the burner at med-high heat, and do not touch the fish! Wait at least 2 minutes before moving your fish to the oven. (If all of the above steps are followed properly, the halibut will not stick to the pan.) Place the fish in the oven at around 350 degrees for 2-4 minutes, depending on the thickness of the halibut. After 2-4 minutes, remove the fish from the oven and check your sear. You want a nice deep golden brown crust on the entire side of the fish before you flip it over. Once you flip the fish over, remove the pan from heat and add about 1 tablespoon of cold butter to the pan. Gently "baste" the fish for 3-4 minutes. The residual heat from the hot pan will help cook the second side of the halibut, while the butter will gently flavor the entire piece of fish. After basting, remove the fish from the pan and serve immediately.
