Whether you poach Mahi-Mahi or your favorite fish, this cooking technique will be one you'll rely on time and time again. It's easy to modify and always produces a moist and flavorful fish.
Poaching Mahi-Mahi is a delicious and easy way to serve this fish, and the technique also works well with other varieties of fish. It’s a great way to prepare Tuna, Swordfish, Salmon and many other types of fish.
Poaching fish is easier than you think and a wonderful way to not only cook fish quickly but also helping to keep it moist and flavorful. Now here’s the best part, you cook dinner in one pan! Traditionally a Court-Bouillon was used to poach fish, but don’t get worried it sounds fancier than it is.
If you want a richer broth, you can, of course, let it simmer for a few hours my dish came out pretty well for using this shortcut method. You can also add some of your favorite fresh herbs to this broth, enhancing the flavors to create your own signature dish.
It’s really that easy, and when you think of it the court-bouillon is basically just a mirepoix (cut up celery, onions and carrots, used in many dishes as well as soups). See now you’ve learned more French terms to make bantering around the kitchen even more fun….you’re almost ready for the tall white hat.
To make a court-bouillon you need just a few items; celery, carrots, onions, and an acidic ingredient along with other liquids. You can use citrus (lime or lemon), wine, or vinegar. Or a combination of any of the ingredients, I used lemon and white wine. I also added a few garlic cloves, and used vegetable stock instead of just plain water, kicking up the flavor profile even more.
As the court-bouillon reduces, you can enhance the flavors by adding cream, butter or other fresh herbs….. It’s your kitchen, have fun experimenting!
If you liked this recipe you may also like these delicious easy to make dishes:
- Blackened Mahi-Mahi with a Pineapple Lobster Sauce
- Grilled Mahi-Mahi with Caponata
- Pan Seared Halibut
- Red Snapper with a Lobster Cream Sauce
How to Poach Mahi-Mahi
Ingredients
- 1 stalk celery rough cut
- 1 medium carrot rough cut
- 1/2 medium onion rough cut
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 12 ounce mahi-mahi 2 fillets
- 4 jumbo shrimp shell on
- sea salt and black pepper
- 1 1/2 cup vegetable stock
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/2 lemon juice only
- 1 lemon zest only
- 2 cups baby spinach
- 1 cup grape tomatoe s cut half long way
- 1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
- Rinse then pat dry the Mahi fillets with paper towels
- Season the filets with sea salt and black pepper
- In a large heated skillet add the olive oil (medium high heat)
- Add the Mahi-Mahi fillets, garlic and veggies
- After 1 minute in the hot skillet, gently turn the fillets over and continue cooking for another minute
- Remove the Mahi from the skillet and set aside
- Add the white wine, stock and lemon juice to the skillet. Bring to a boil and allow the stock to reduce by half.
- Reduce the heat to medium and return the Mahi to the pan along with shrimp, spinach and tomatoes. Sprinkle half the lemon zest on top of the Mahi.
- Allow Mahi and other ingredients to continue cooking for 3-4 minutes. If you'd like to test teh fish to see if its done insert a very sharp knife into the thickest part to see if its done cooking.
- Remove fish and shrimp and plate over rice
- Add butter to pan and mix well until melted
- Serve spinach mixture with mahi over rice.
- **You can peel the shrimp if you like before serving or simply have your guests peel them with the dinner.
Nutrition
Mama Maggie's Kitchen says
This looks so so good. My husband will love this dish.
Marina says
Poached Mahi Mahi sounds delicious! Love this fish, thanks for sharing
Sara says
Oh yum! All those flavors work so well together without sacrificing the waistline. 💗
Erika says
This looks so delicious! Can’t wait to give this dish a go. Yummy
Alexandra says
Poached fish is such a wonderful way to serve it. I enjoyed this recipe very much – thank you!
Sue says
Delicious! Can never go wrong with a good seafood dish!
Heidi Green says
This is a delicious recipe, I can’t thank you enough!
I would ask you about the lemon juice and lemon zest. They are in your ingredients list, but not mentioned in the instructions. Now, coming back to the post after printing and making the recipe last night, I see you sprinkled lemon zest on the dish. What did you do with the lemon juice?
It would be helpful if you would add instructions on what to do with those, as the printout didn’t have the picture of how you used the zest, and I’m still curious about the juice. In my estimation, neither was needed (maybe because I used a Reisling), but you likely have some delicious use for them.
Thanks again!
Chef Dennis Littley says
hi Heidi
the lemon juice should have gone in during the reduction and part of the zest at the final preparation when adding the spinach and tomato. Sorry about missing that in the instructions. I have added both in. It’s one of my older recipes when I was not quite as thorough. thanks for te heads up.
Heidi Green says
Thanks, that’s helpful.
Maybe #12 could have at the end “, sprinkle the lemon zest over everything.”
Also, and this is just nit-picking that I didn’t even notice before, #9’s second sentence says “If you’d like to test teh fish…” – the word “the” is misspelled there. I make typos ALL the time.
Anyway, I can’t wait to try this again, this time with the zest and the juice. Hard to improve perfection, but I’m excited to check it out!
SJ says
My first time poaching fish… My husband gave it a 9.5 out of 10 Thank you!!
Chef Dennis Littley says
I’m happy to hear you enjoyed my recipe! I hope you find more to try
Sophia says
Informative & valuable article. Really great thinking. Love all the things shared here. Keep it up.
Johanne says
Had a piece of salmon and a piece of mahi-mahi left in my freezer. Recipe appealed to me for freshness, simplicity, and use of various veggies. Shrimps were a great addition. I did not let the broth consume too much to have more juice to serve with rice. So delicious! A keeper!.
Thomas says
Hi Chef, thanks for the awesome recipe! We have included it in our roundup of the top 50 Mahi-Mahi recipes in the world!
Terri says
I made this and it was great! Thank you! I wasn’t sure when to add the lemon juice… I didn’t see it mentioned in the actual recipe. But I threw it in there at some point and it turned out fine. Just thought you might want to add it in for us novices. So I know if it matters when or not. Thanks again. 🙂
Chef Dennis Littley says
I’m happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe and thank you for the heads up, I added the lemon juice in with the stock and wine addition!
Kim Bultman | a little lunch says
Dennis, I had to put off my birthday dinner by a day (the joys of moving, lol!) and had planned to do an Asian marinated salmon, but the sublime simplicity of your poached fish is making me lean towards that. Sometimes simpler is better… and more flavorful! Thank you.
Diana @DandelionGreensBlog says
I was just wondering about poaching salmon. So glad I found your post today!
Chef Dennis Littley says
This would work wonderfully with salmon Diana
[email protected] says
Beautiful looking Mahi Mahi Chef. Interestingly, this is exactly how we cook ‘jhol’ is Bengal, India. Fish being our staple diet, poaching them is the way to go, though the flavors and spices used are very different. This looks delicious.