Grouper with Parmesan & Butter

We broiled red grouper last night with a simple recipe...

Salt & pepper your grouper fillets and put them on a baking sheet lined with foil and nonstick spray. I also drizzled some lemon juice on them. Set the oven to broil with the rack on the top. While that's heating up, mix in a small bowl a half cup of grated Parmesan Cheese, four tablespoons softened butter, three tablespoons mayonnaise plus salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste (Tabasco in this case).

Put the fish under the broiler and let that cook for anywhere between six and ten minutes depending on the size of your fillets and your oven. You're looking for the fish to just get to the point of being easily flaked. In our case, seven minutes did the trick for roughly three quarters of a pound of fish. Pull the fish out and spread your Parmesan mixture on the top. Back under the broiler for two to three minutes until the spread bubbles and starts to brown.

I thought about serving this on top of wild rice but ended up going with No Yolks Egg Noodles (I'm dieting again). The color combination isn't great when plated - no pop of color. But the fish was cooked exactly the way I like - moist and flaky. The topping gave it a nice saltiness. Alan's critique was that he'd like something to cut the mayo flavor a bit. I didn't really taste the mayonnaise but it that's the case, wild rice would probably have been a better match. We've in the past tried a similar recipe from Paula Dean that used Monterey Jack with a little cream cheese instead of mayonnaise. I thought this version was lighter but it also wasn't as decadent as the Paula recipe.

I love cooking fish - it's about as simple as you can possibly imagine and there are so many types out there if you have a good fish market, Whole Foods or Wegmans.