The Frozen Fish Factor

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you’ll know the author is not a cook.

Nevertheless—

I put a frozen, battered haddock fillet into my toaster-oven. The instructions on the box said to cook it in a preheated 450° oven for 25 minutes. After preheating the oven, I put the fillet on the oven rack and placed the drip tray below it and began waiting. After only 14 minutes (11 cooking minutes remaining) I looked at the oven and saw smoke pouring out of it. I turned off the oven. I was sure the fillet was burnt black. But when the smoke died down, I removed the fillet from the oven and it was cooked perfectly. The batter was brown and crisp and the fillet was fully cooked and not overcooked. It was quite tasty. So what happened to make the smoke?

Fish oil had dripped from the haddock into the drip tray and, because the heating elements are below the drip tray, the oil had burned onto the tray. I tried to scrub off the residue but succeeded only in turning my dish sponge black. I threw it into the kitchen trash can. (The sponge, not the tray.)

Next time I’ll set the timer for, maybe, 12 minutes instead of 25. And I’ll keep a close eye on it. And I’ll line the drip tray with aluminum foil. I could order replacements for the drip tray and oven rack, except Sears no longer sells parts for that oven. Of course they don’t, and we all know why. They don’t want you to fix your product; they want to sell you a new product.

But wait. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to mock Sears. Surely I’m just being a cynical American consumer. No doubt Sears has a perfectly legitimate reason why they can’t sell a couple of simple parts.

Now that’s called mockery.