This White Fish Florentine is a lush and flavorful dish inspired by my visit to Tuscany with DaVinci Wine a few years ago.
Spinach is used in all sorts of Tuscan dishes and it’s also prevalent in many coastal seafood recipes like my Spinach Ricotta Stuffed Dover Sole. I love the simple list of ingredients combined with fresh white fish, which is typically easy to find year round. This gorgeous recipe makes for a fuss free weeknight meal or an elegant meal for entertaining.
Living here in the Pacific Northwest, I use several different types of white fish for this recipe, depending on the season. I adore this dish when halibut is in season or when I can snag a gorgeous piece of black or ling cod.
I like to enjoy the fresh and enticing flavors of this White Fish Florentine paired with a bottle of DaVinci Pinot Grigio. Perfection!
Delicious Wishes and Loads of Love,
Karista
White Fish Florentine with DaVinci Pinot Grigio
Ingredients
- 1lb fresh spinach (or 1 large pkg frozen organic chopped spinach)
- Olive oil
- 3 tablespoons chopped shallots
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1/3 cup heavy cream (for a saucier dish add ½ cup cream)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest and a few squeezes of lemon
- Salt and pepper
- 1 ½ – 2 lbs fresh fish (Cod, Ling Cod, Halibut, Snapper, Sole, if using snapper try to remove the bones prior to cooking)
- 1/3 cup bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan
- Serve with fresh lemon wedges
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 400F.
- In a sauté pan over medium heat, drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil and add the fresh spinach, in batches if you need. Sauté just until the spinach is wilted and transfer to a dish. Continue until all the spinach has been sautéed. Let the spinach cool a bit and then squeeze all the excess liquid from the spinach. Coarsely chop the sautéed spinach and set aside.
- Or, if using frozen spinach, thaw and squeeze out all the excess liquid.
- In the same sauté pan over medium heat, add another tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the shallots and garlic for one minute or until fragrant. Next, stir in the heavy cream, Dijon mustard and lemon zest. Take the pan off the heat and fold in the chopped spinach until combined with the sauce. Season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste.
- Drizzle a bit of olive oil in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish, just enough so the fish won’t stick. Season each piece of fish with salt and pepper and place the fish in the baking dish in a single layer.
- Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the fish. Then squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the spinach and fish. Mix together the bread crumbs and grated parmesan and then sprinkle on top of the spinach.
- Place the fish into the oven and roast for about 10-15 minutes or until the fish is flaky and done. Typically you can cook fish about 10 minutes for every inch of thickness, however, because we’ve layered with spinach and breadcrumbs cooking time may be longer.
- When the fish is done, remove from the oven and serve with fresh lemon wedges.
This dish is inspired by my visit to Tuscany with the 2013 DaVinci Wine Storyteller Experience and adapted from many versions of Fish Florentine. I dined on something similar and I was so impressed with the simple but flavorful meal I had to re-create it for this website. Enjoy!
Karista, reading this post is why I nominated you with the 2012 Blog of the Year Award earlier in the year (or was it late last year? 🙂 — I forget now). Your honesty, your beliefs in why you blog and the amazing food that you constantly share make you someone I admire and look up to — I want to be a better blogger and better cook! Great post!
Wow, you humble me Danny. Thank you again for your support and honoring me with the Blog of the year award. You are an amazing blogger, off to an amazing start. What a spectacular first year. There are big things in store for you my friend. Hugs!
Great post Karista!!!! I can really relate and love your deeper message!
Thanks Alyssa! I had someome comment how perfect my life looked. It struck me that my life isn’t at all perfect and that’s not the message I want to convey. Life is messy! Even for me. And it’s challenging, and sometimes makes me want to run away. LOL! But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I truly feel blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. 🙂 Let’s get together soon! February?
You are an inspiration my dear, although I can so sympathize with feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day. This fish looks fabulous. Like all your recipes…going on the list!
Thank you Erina! Nope, never enough hours in a day. Or enough daylight! LOL! I hope you’re feeling better and getting much needed rest. Hugs!!
I’m so glad you do write! I am always inspired by your good ideas. 🙂
Thanks Emmy! I’m so glad you write too! Love your beautiful and delicious recipes. See you Sunday… Whoo Hoo!
I definitely know you are passionate about why you blog and your cooking.. if I could have a personal chef, Karista, it would be you:) I really loved your message and as a mother of older/sort of grown up children/young adults I’m always just so impressed with how bloggers with young children and crazy schedules and work… still find the time to write. I’m the lucky one.. because I get to come here and read.. and see lovely and innovative recipes! xo
Thanks Smidge! I too have an older child/young adult, but the youngest is still home and just beginning the busy High School schedule. I know many young woman bloggers with young children and I am also amazed at how they manage their young ones, home and a blog! LOL! I don’t think I could have been that organized when my kids were little. Hugs to you my friend and have a fabulous week!
Lovely post, yummy recipe! Thank you
Thanks Darya. And thank you for stopping by. 🙂
Love the comment by your 14 year old kind of perfection and wish I could enjoy the afternoon lunch with friends kind of perfection right now. Your observations ring true for me Karista. I will have to give this white fish dish a try!
Thanks Barb! Yes, one never knows what will come out of a 14 year olds mouth. LOL! I do so enjoy lunches with girlfriends. Few and far between but when we can all get together it’s just a little piece of heaven. Hoping you get some friend time soon!
Yummy – glad you list some more interesting fish. Could also use coley, haddock or pollack? Looks great, Karista. My life is also messy… I have too much to be getting on with!
Hahahaha! I hear you! But for us passionate foodies it’s hard not write about the food we love. And I LOVE your blog so you keep writing because I might just have a meltdown if there were no more Frugal Feeding. 🙂 Absolutely, any white fish will be great in this recipe.
Exactly! Exactly! Haha – I shall and you must too!
lovely recipe and beautiful words about life’s moments of perfection. from this humble observer, you seem to doing a fabulous job of maintaining balance and perspective. ~ kale in ecuador
Thank you Kale! I skipped on over to browse your blog and it’s delightfully delicious! Looks like you and the Mr. are having lots of grand adventure around the world. I’ve never been to Ecuador but I imagine it’s a wonderful place to experience. Delicious Wishes, Karista
That’s a wonderful, passionate statement about life….messy, and worth every second. Thanks for sharing it.
AND that yummy sauce! 🙂
You said it! Messy and worth every second. 🙂 The dish almost feels a bit like creamed spinach over fish. Yummy!
What a great idea to florentine white fish! Yum!
I love spinach so much I think I’ve Florentined just about everything possible. 🙂
Love everything about it 🙂 I adore fish!
I totally agree with you in order to be healthy we must learn to cook – being in the kitchen, cooking together is healthy on so many levels. Nothing I know better in the world than to gather people in the kitchen for great food and time spend together 🙂
Absolutely Anne! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
You know what I love about your blog, Karista? The food you come up with is innovative and something I would likely never come up with on my own, but it is all so enticing! And doable! Double win!
🙂 Awww… thank you so much Christie. I really needed to read this tonight. I made a stinker of a recipe this evening, that even my husband didn’t like. LOL! Feelin’ just a little disappointed. Hahaha! It was another fish dish with preserved lemon, green olives and capers with a sprinkling of cilantro. Very Moroccan. I’m not sure where the dish went wrong but it wasn’t very tasty. Too much saffron I think. 🙁
This is a good post and a good reminder that perfection is so relative. I’m having a moment now laughing, blogging, and eating chocolate chips and dried cranberries with my own 14 yr old daughter who I think would love this dish. Thanks Karista… x wendy
You’re so welcome Wendy! Wow, just one more thing we have in common. 14 year old daughters. 🙂 Sounds like a wonderful evening. Enjoy!
I think you dish looks wonderful…I have had a similar dish but the spinach was stuffed inside a roll of fish. I like your version better with the wonderful crunchy top.
How true! I love your philosophy of achievable but beautifully delicious food.
It’s funny how it’s seemingly the ‘big things’ that can overwhelm us in life, but it’s those little things that end up bringing everything together and bringing you back around to what’s important.
We eat at the table every night! Great cooking time advice Karista 🙂
It looks like you are doing very well Karista, your blog is wonderful…… I totally agree with you about life, perfection and healthy food, and this florentine fish is all I wish to have right now, have a great day! 😉
A very much like the idea of using a lean white protein for spinach florentine. We do sometimes have white meat in the freezer (sometimes from fishing trips) sometimes the supermarket. Yet there’s always frozen spinach and the want to do something tasty with it, so winner all round 🙂