Fish Switch

If you stopped by on Saturday, you saw that my meal plan for the week included Coconut Curry Cod from Stephanie Kay's "Red's 5-Ingredient Meals".   If you own that cookbook, you know that recipe doesn't exist.

What?

The recipe is actually Coconut Curry Salmon.  I had intended to use salmon, as it was on sale, but when I got to the store the salmon didn't look particularly appetizing.  So, after looking at other options that might work, I decided to go with cod fillets, mostly because I already had them in my freezer.  And that wasn't my only substitution. Broccolette was also on sale, so I decided to use it instead of the baby bok choy called for in the recipe.  Good thing I did.  I didn't see any bok choy when I was shopping.

How did I know the recipe would still work?  Mostly guess work.  I knew there were other recipes out there for coconut curry with cod, including this one from Meghan Telpner.  I haven't actually tried her recipe yet, but I figured if Meghan could put coconut milk and cod together, so could I.

And the broccolette?  That was guess work with a dash of intuition and lots of home-cooking experience.  It looks like it was a good guess. When I consulted the almighty Google, "long-stem broccoli" comes up as a suitable alternative for bok choy.  I'm pretty sure long-stem broccoli is another name for broccolette.

My point?  

Many recipes can be altered to suit your taste, to suit what's available, and to suit your budget.  I try to keep that in mind when I am planning my meals.  Most of the time it even works.

(Note:  The broccolette took longer to cook than I had anticipated, so I took the cod out of the sauce when it was finished and let the broccolette cook a bit longer. Sometimes winging-it with your ingredients means you have to improvise with your instructions too.)

(*Note:  I don't get anything for the links above.  They're there for your information.  Hope you find them useful.)