Yet another Mise En Place original for your evening's salivary gland stimulation.  Of course it's an original, who in their right mind would publish a recipe for something so weird, and flawed from such a pirate's booty of mismatched ingredients.  Yet somehow it managed to please.

I started this dish with a crust made from panko bread crumbs, minced ginger, sesame seeds, and softened butter.  S&P on the arctic char filet and then I patted on the crust.  Mistake one was not making enough this delicious (as it turned out) mixture.  The fish was coated all over, but not densely.  This fish then went into a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  Mistake number two was that I should have maybe taken it out earlier and finished it under the broiler.  The fish was cooked beautifully, but the crust wasn't very browned in that amount of time.  It needed to be crustier, to hold it's texture better with the thin sauce.

Meanwhile I sliced a couple red fingerling potatoes and a zucchini with a mandoline and threw those in the oven on a cookie sheet with some S&P and olive oil for the fleur-de-lis-esque garnish.  While this was going on, with my spare hand, I bashed up a stalk of lemon grass, a couple garlic cloves, and some ginger in the mortar and pestle and commenced sauteeing that mess in a little butter.  To this I added the juice of one pomegranate and simmered and reduced for a few minutes.  This sauce was strained and finished with a tab of butter. 

When I first tasted the sauce, I was pretty worried about the combination, it was much more tart than expected.  But in the end, the flavourful char and crust held up surprisingly well to this bold sauce.  I think the lemon grass and ginger helped ease the transition.  That sauce is definitely worth some more experiments and tweaks, maybe as a dipping sauce for some light fresh spring rolls.