Remember fish dishes baked with canned cream of mushroom soup? This is the original, and you may not believe how good it is. Never buy dried porcini in the tiny packages sold at stores. A package should contain at least an ounce, and the mushrooms should look like mushrooms, not powder. Given that you can buy a pound of dried porcini for as little as $25 (look on the Internet), you should expect to pay no more than $5 for an ounce. Serve this with buttered rice or noodles.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

　　1 cup hot fish stock, preferably homemade (page 161), or water

　　2 tablespoons butter

　　1/4 cup chopped shallot or red onion

　　1 1/2 to 2 pounds cod, red snapper, striped bass, halibut, or any other thick fillet, in 1 or 2 pieces

　　Salt and black pepper to taste

　　1 cup sour cream

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Soak the mushrooms in the stock until softened, about 10 minutes. Trim any hard parts and chop roughly. Pour the soaking liquid through a cheesecloth-lined strainer.

　　

Step 2

Use about half the butter to grease a baking dish just large enough to hold the fish. Add the shallot, then the fish; sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper. Cover lightly with foil and bake for about 5 minutes.

　　

Step 3

Meanwhile, combine the mushrooms, sour cream, and enough of the soaking liquid to make a thin sauce. Pour this over and around the fish, re-cover the pan, and continue to bake until the fish is done (a thin-bladed knife inserted into its center will meet little resistance), 5 to 10 minutes more. Serve hot.

　　The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved.MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.