Crisp Steelhead Pappardelle

Score: 8/10

A highly appealing, restaurant-quality spring pasta dish. The recipe features smart techniques and excellent flavor pairings, but needs a couple of minor adjustments to timing logic and pan lubrication to ensure flawless execution for a home cook.

Strengths

Excellent flavor profile matching rich steelhead and butter sauce with bright, crisp spring vegetables.
Efficient workflow utilizing one skillet for the mushrooms, fish, and sauce, and one pot for the pasta and vegetables.
Clear instructions on how to slowly whisk in cold butter to create a properly emulsified, glossy pan sauce.

Issues

medium / clarity: There is a chronological contradiction between Step 5 and Step 6. Step 5 states to cook the pasta, reserve pasta water, and drain it. Step 6 tells the cook to make the sauce 'while the pasta cooks' but instructs them to use the 'reserved pasta water' which hasn't been reserved yet.
medium / cookability: In Step 3, 1 tablespoon of olive oil is used to sear the maitake mushrooms. Maitakes act like sponges and will absorb this oil entirely. Step 4 instructs adding the steelhead directly to the same pan. Without adding more oil to the dry pan, the fish skin is very likely to stick and tear.

Suggested fixes

Add a splash of olive oil to the skillet at the beginning of Step 4 before adding the steelhead.
Modify Step 6 to clarify that the cook should ladle 1/4 cup of starchy water directly from the actively boiling pasta pot, rather than referring to the water reserved at the end of Step 5.