Sunday Gravy With Horatio Cornblower

This here offering is usually handled by Yeah Right, but he quit for the regular season.  Pfft, nobody likes quitter Yeah Right; just ask my liver.

Never fear, however, your ol’ buddy Horatio is no stranger to a grill and he’s here to help you with a delicious, quick and very easy meal that you can throw together at lunch to tide you right through to dinner.  So strap in kids, because today we’re making lime-mango salmon, Horatio style.

What you will need:

A car

Money

A gas grill

Plates

A knife and fork

Get in the car and drive to the grocery store.  I’m lucky enough to live relatively near a fresh sea food store so if you’ve got one of them you can them up too.  Walk up to the counter, point to the lime-mango salmon and order as many pieces as you’ll need.  I find 2 5 oz. pieces per adult usually does it.  Take those to the check-out counter and pay for them.  If you’re lucky you’ll walk by a display with Mexican Coca-Cola.  Grab a bottle; that shit’s delicious.  And make sure it’s Coca-Cola. You can get Mexican coke about two blocks from that seafood place I mentioned but that’s another story entirely.

Now go home and take the cover off your grill.  That’s important; trust me you don’t want to turn the grill on with the cover still still on it.  Unless you need a new grill.  Then go for it.  Melted plastic tarp pretty much justifies replacing anything.

Turn the grill on high, let it heat up and then scrape down the grill to get rid of all the scraps you forgot to get rid of the last time you used the grill.  Ignore your better half’s shrill cries about “Why are you cooking those disgusting fish on my grill!?”  First, it’s not her grill.  Second, fish are delicious and only Philistines would think otherwise and third she should be happy that it’s now past noon and I’m only drinking soda.  Also goddammit woman I just bought you a new cutting board that’s off-limits for fish.  There are women in Somalia that would kill for that.  Or for fish for that matter.

Now go back inside, get the fish, put them on the grill, loosen them up with a spatula, close the grill and wander off for 3 minutes.

This is the important part.  At some point in the next three minutes you should remember that you forgot to turn the heat down to slightly above medium and that you are now scorching the shit out of the fish.  Run back outside, throwing open the screen door and leaping off the back stairs.  You should scare the shit out of the outdoor cat at this point, who, even though she hates humanity with every fiber of what she laughingly calls a soul, has wandered out with the idea of getting some if not all of that fish for herself.  I’m not sure this is necessary to the recipe but really, why chance it?  Also that cat is Satan so fuck her.

Open the grill, wave away the smoke and discover that while you have indeed scorched the bejesus out of the salmon it’s actually nearly perfect in the middle so just flip it over for no more than a minute to scorch the other side, then put it on a plate.  Throw the outdoor cat a couple of scraps off the grill unless you want that she-demon to jump you as soon as your back’s turned.

Bring the fish inside, put it on a plate and use a knife and fork to eat it because we’re not savages here.

This recipe works equally well for dinner but I’d replace the soda with a nice grapefruit Sculpin, which is both pretentious and delicious with grilled fish.

Tune in next week when Horatio tries to grill a pizza!