Pan-Grilled Halibut with Brown Butter: So Good & Super Easy!

Catching halibut is fun, but eating them is even better. Especially with brown butter!!

If you are look for a super easy and amazingly delicious way to prepare halibut, this is it!

Pangrilled halibut with a brown butter drizzle is off-the-charts good and even a slightly trained monkey like myself can do it…and come out looking like Wolfgang Puck in the process!

My good pal and TV show host Scott “The Sporting Chef” Leysath (www.thesportingchef.com) turned me onto this and I can’t thank him enough for showing me the light. My only regret is I lived so many years without ever knowing the joys of brown butter!

Anyway, all you need is some salt, pepper, flour, butter, oil and fresh halibut fillets. Here’s how to do it:

Start by completely patting the fish dry with paper towels, and then salt and pepper both sides of the fillets to taste. Next lightly coat the fillets in flour and shake off the excess.

Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil and the same amount of butter into a pan, let the oil heat up over medium heat and then cook the fish until both sides are golden brown…

Fillets in the Pan!

When the fish is done, put it on a platter in the oven on low heat just to keep it warm. Now it’s time to make the oh so yummy brown butter! Since I’m usually only cooking for family of three, I use a half a stick of butter but if you have a larger group you may need the entire thing.

Cut the stick into even thickness pads and place them flat down the bottom of a small pan. You’re going to want to use a silver or light colored pan so you can see how things are going over the next few steps. Avoid using dark-colored pans…

Brown Butter Time!

Over medium-high heat start cooking the butter, stirring frequently…

Soon the butter will start to foam. Keep stirring rapidly…

Bubbling Butter

Don’t walk away, stay focused and keep stirring. Pretty  soon, the butter will start to turn a brownish root beer color…

Brown Butter Halibut

At this point, you should start to smell the amazing nutty aroma of the butter…SO GOOD! What’s happening here is the water is boiling away and you are basically frying the milk solids in their own juices. Keep stirring. You’ll see little specks (the milk solids) at the bottom of the pan start to brown. Take a few more strokes and then remove the pan from the heat. You can easily burn the solids at this point, turning heaven on earth into something that tastes like an ashtray, so be careful. A few more turns of the wooden spoon and then pour the liquid into a serving dish…

Brown Butter almost Done

The brown nectar of the gods…

Done!

YUM!!!!

Careful here, the brown butter will be as hot as molten lava! Take your fish out of the oven and onto plates and then immediately drizzle the fillets with brown butter. A word of caution here: Once you go down this path there’s no turning back. Brown butter will become a regular part of your culinary life!

By the way, this recipe works great on all white fish. I’ve done it a bunch with surf perch too! (Lean how to catch perch HERE). My wife proved that brown butter is also amazing when used for baking. From experience, I can say brown butter chocolate chip cookies are so good they should be illegal!

For other halibut recipes try: HALIBUT & SHRIMP CAKES