Braised Halibut With Asparagus, Baby Potatoes and Saffron Recipe (2024)

Heat your stainless steel Al Clad pan until you can add a few drops of water that beads up and “dances” (not just a sizzle) around the pan and evaporates. Add the oil and your pan is now essentially non-stick. Your fish will sear much better giving you the famed Maillard reaction.

The mix of flavors is excellent, but the broth made as specified is weak. Most importantly, use a fish stock instead of water, and use 8 anchovies (or add Thai fish sauce to taste at the end). I made this with twice the almonds, 3 times the garlic, and dissolved twice the amount of saffron in rose water (not plain water). It was fantastic.

Delicious! If you can stand the price of halibut this is well worth making. Do yourself a favor and use a nonstick pan to sear the fish - I used my beloved All Clad and struggled mightily to get the fish turned over and out of the skillet without having it fall apart. As always with NYTimes recipes it takes longer than indicated - closer to an hour than 35 minutes if you're a regular home cook. The anchovies add flavor and you don't know they're there. Good enough to serve to company.

With asparagus out of season, I used large mushrooms, quartered so they were the same size as the new baby potatoes, and seared quickly on the outside (like the fish) to set aside until the later braising. As for the fish, Lake Superior whitefish right out of the cold clean waters of the greatest of the Great Lakes was, as always, superb.

Delicious sauce. I was serving a houseful, so for cost sake I substituted cod for halibut, which needed a little more cooking time. Seared the fish in an iron skillet, so it had a nice crust. Substituted small red potatoes for fingerlings, and they worked fine cut in half.

The mix of flavors is excellent, but the broth made as specified is weak. Most importantly, use a fish stock instead of water, and use 8 anchovies (or add Thai fish sauce to taste at the end). I made this with twice the almonds, 3 times the garlic, and dissolved twice the amount of saffron in rose water (not plain water). It was fantastic.

Based on what others had said about the broth, I used less liquid, used some fish stock and some water, and deglazed the pan with white wine before adding the broth and water. My finished dish was more of a sauce than a broth. I also don't have a mortar and pestle, and the sauce was grainy from the nuts so used the immersion blender on it. I also poached the fish for only four minutes and it was perfect. This is a really elegant and easy dish.

Loved the flavors but had some prep/timing issues. Used anchovy paste rather than whole fish to mix w/ garlic & ground almonds. (Why ground almonds? Why not just scatter some toasted, slivered almonds over the dish before serving?) Used a thick slab of halibut. I get the need to sear, but after sitting for 15 minutes post searing, the fish was basically cooked through. So put asparagus in liquid first for about 3 minutes, then poached fish for only 2 minutes — just to reheat. Used only 2c water.

Quite tasty and sophisticated. Used 1 lb halibut and kept all other ingredients the same to make 2 generous portions. Deglazed pan with 1/2 c white wine and added 1/2 c water to simmer vegetables. Total of 1 c liquid instead of 3 c. No need to reduce. Fish was fully cooked after sautéing and resting in a 160F warming oven while vegetables cooked. Finished with a drizzle of EVOO.

I microwaved the asparagus for 2 minutes and then added it to the broth with the fish and after a few minutes of simmering everything was cooked to perfection
Very tasty and light

Fantastic spring dish. I had no problem with the fish. I heated my All-Clad frying pan with olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan to sizzle. My fillets were thick so I seared all 4 sides. I cut the recipe in half for 2 of us but used the full amount of water. My asparagus were right out of the garden as was the garlic. Lovely flavor, very filling. I love dinners that are cooked in one pot. This was an elegant dinner that could be served at the finest of restaurants.

I used cod, but it needs a little more cooking time to get the nice flake you want.

Delicious!! Adjusted for one person, but doubled almond/garlic/anchovy & herbs, used white wine to deglaze then water. Added strips of red pepper for color. Ate w/crusty WW baguette. Fresh halibut on sale made the day :-)

I'm not sure why the fish needs to be seared at the beginning of the preparation, why poaching at the end isn't enough?

This is a great recipe but to say this takes an hour is a complete farce. Minus the minions, if you want to serve at seven, start around 3:30. Every step is simple, but every step takes time. Are you deveining the shrimp? Scrubbing the little necks? Rinsing the rice? Arranging everything by the grill? Our guests loved it (three cups of rice more than enough) It’s a labor of love, and love takes time.

Used almond butter instead of almonds. Sprinkled bacon bits on top. So good!!

A bit bland so I added 1-2 TBS tamarind dipping sauce when adding the seared halibut back to the pan. This added a delightful pungent kick to the braising sauce.

Sauce was delicious. Enjoyed the recipe but it seemed to overwhelm the halibut, which is too pricey now to overwhelm. I’d make it again and make it vegetarian. 😀

I made this recipe and my husband and I loved it. I love recipes that incorporate anchovies; they add such a rich, mellow and umami taste. I didn't have halibut so I used cod. It seemed to come out just fine.

I used anchovy paste, and instead of making a paste with my toasted sliced almonds, I added them at the very end. I also followed other people's advice and used fish stock instead of water. It was delicious.

Agree with some of the comments. The sauce as is lacking flavor. Needed way more saffron, anchovies, garlic and SALT! Mistake not to salt it (as the recipe says). Would definitely make again, but with more flavor.

Substituted the water with spot prawn broth, anchovies with capers, and parsley with Vietnamese coriander. The result was incredibly flavourful without needing much salt for seasoning.

Microwave potatoes in advanceChopped almonds and add on top of fish along with herbsCook fish To internal temp 130

Having just saffron as the broth doesn’t help. I added fish stock I had in the fridge.

And oh yeah - I don't own any nonstick pans and you really don't need them here. If you have fish sticking badly after a 1 min sear with 2 tbsp oil, your heat is either too low or you're just not waiting long enough for the surface of the fish to cook and release. Probably a combination of both.

Use nonstick panFish or chicken stock instead of waterdouble almondstriple garlicdouble saffron

The broth is unexpectedly bland as written. Needs way more anchovy, garlic and salt. And I’m not a big salt user. Also confusing instructions after potatoes cook. Transfer/tilt all broth out for a clean pan sear then return broth to pan and reduce? That’s how I interpreted. Subbed spinach for basil since I didn’t have. Basil would’ve added a little more specific flavor but not convinced it would solve the issue of bland broth. Exciting recipe but needs tweaking.