Dana's Halibut with Sufferin' Corn & Okra Succotash

My sister, Dana, is an incredible cook, and baker, and has recently been hired as a private chef. She lives on the Big Island of Hawaii and if there's one thing she knows well (though she knows many) it's how to cook a fish.

Honestly, I'm not a big fish eater. That doesn't mean I don't like fish (I do, as long as it's the sustainable, not-over fished variety), it means that I can't eat it unless it's perfect, so therefore, I often don't order it or make it. I usually only eat fish at a top restaurant or when I'm in Hawaii or the Caribbean, where you know you're getting incredibly fresh fish. I found a fish monger recently who gets really fresh stuff, so I decided to give it a shot.

The great thing about fish, is that when it's fresh, you barely have to do anything to it, and it cooks really quickly. Dana cooks simple, fresh, sustainable and organic food. She cooked this halibut for me once, and it was great, so we did it again last night, and made a succotash out of some beautiful fresh okra I found at the farmer's market, white corn, and onion.

Succotash is a Native American dish, (Algonquian tribe). In the Narragansett language it means for "boiled kernels of corn", and is technically, made with corn, lima beans, and butter or cream. It became very popular during the Great Depression because of the cheap ingredients, especially in the south, where they added vegetables to it, as well as peppers. Since we're in the Great Recession, we figured it was appropriate.

What you'll need:
A piece of halibut
3 ears of white corn
A large handful of okra
1 onion, yellow, preferably maui
lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper

First, heat up your grill or your pan. You want to get it nice and hot.

Take your fish, rinse, pat dry, put in a bowl and season both sides with salt and pepper. Squeeze on the juice of half your lemon, then coat with olive oil. Let it sit in there for about 10 minutes. The lemon juice actually cooks the fish, so you don;t want to marinate it in lemon juice for too long.

While that's sitting, cut your okra horizontally into 1cm pieces, so you get think discs of it. Roughly chop or dice your onion. Saute the okra and onion on medium heat for five minutes, with some olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Then turn it down to low.

Now take your corn and halibut outside and put it all on the grill. I'm not that great at grilling corn, but I try and leave it on there long enough to get some good grill marks on it, turning and rolling every few minutes so that it cooks evenly.

For the fish, I cooked it for about 4 minutes a side. The first four minutes, the grill was open, the second for minutes, I closed it, so the fish would cook through. My grill was about 450-500 degrees. I then opened up the grill and flipped it once more and cooked it for another minute on each side, so it had a nice golden color on each side, and was white / translucent all the way through - it was just starting to flake apart. While your fish is cooking, be sure to go back inside and give your okra and onions a stir -- or have your friend or significant other tend to it.

Take the fish and corn off. Cover your fish with tinfoil while you finish the succotash.

Take the corn, and cut it off the cobb into a bowl, and add it to the onions and okra. Crank the heat up to medium high, add a little more olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and cook for 2 minutes.

Unfoil your halibut, plate and serve with a large spoonful of succotash.

It's Hawaiian and Narraganett for D-lish.