Sear Roasted Halibut and Mushroom Butter Wrapped in Rice Paper

I was inspired by a recipe in Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger Cookbook for this dish.  I entered  a chanterelle variation of it in Marx Food’s Chanterelle Mushroom recipe contest back in September…..and won!!  Enjoy!  Serves 4.

Ingredients:

1 lb. halibut fillets sliced into 4 ¼ lb. portions
½ lb. mixed wild mushrooms (shitake, boletes, chanterelles, lobster, etc.), sliced
½ stick butter, at room temperature
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
4 large rice paper wrappers
4 green onions, sliced for garnish
4 tbsp. peanut oil
truffle oil
salt & cracked black pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 400.  In sauté pan, over medium heat, add 1 tbsp. peanut oil and sauté ¼ lb mushrooms, garlic and shallot until soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.  Meanwhile, slice butter into ½ inch slices and place in mixing bowl.  Add the mushrooms, shallot & garlic to a food processor & pulse until coarsely chopped.  Remove and add to mixing bowl with butter.  Season with salt & pepper to taste and using potato masher, or fork mix the mushrooms and butter together to make a paste.  Scrape the butter paste onto waxed paper and roll into a cylinder.  Wrap with plastic wrap and freeze for 1 hour.

Remove any skin from the halibut, and place in a shallow baking dish.  Drizzle with truffle oil and season with salt & pepper, set aside.  Fill a large mixing bowl with warm water and soak the rice paper wrappers one at a time.  Set on paper towels to dry.  Take a fillet and place in the middle of a wrapper.  Place 1-2 slices of  mushroom butter on top of each fillet (enough to cover the fillet), and flip fillet over with butter underneath.  Wrap the fillet with the rice paper and ensure the fish is completely covered.  Flip over and place back in baking dish to set.  Repeat with remaining fillets.  Place baking dish in refrigerator for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, in sauté pan, over medium heat, sauté remaining ¼ lb. of mushrooms in 1 tbsp. peanut oil.  Sauté till golden brown; about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In same pan (or large oven proof pan), add remaining 2 tbsp. peanut oil and bring heat to medium-high.  When oil begins to smoke, sear the halibut packages on each side for 3 minutes (make sure the pan is big enough to fit all 4 packages).  Place the pan in oven and finish for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat, place each package on a plate, spoon mushrooms over each package, top with slice green onions and drizzle the pan juices over each package.  Serve with steamed spinach and a nice dry white wine.  Bon Appetit.