Some More of My Food Writing: Toothsome-Toothfish

Chilean Seabass with Fregola & Spinach

We’ve been cooking and eating a lot of fish since Saturday when we purveyed a selection of seafood from Arthur Avenue, in the Bronx. Consequently I’ve been doing some food writing about it as well.  Let’s see, we’ve had pasta stuffed seppia, we had the fresh Italian imported branzino, pictured below, as I unwrapped them on Saturday evening.  Oh, did Rosaria mention in her post about Arthur Avenue, that as we were schlepping our bags around the neighborhood to our parked car, we stopped at a different fish market and impulsively bought a couple of dozen Pine Island oysters which we immediately ate on our arrival home? Then on Sunday night we had friends over for dinner. Although I made a veal scaloppini roulade for everyone, Rosaria sautéed herself a piece of tile fish because she doesn’t eat mammals.

Branzino (aka European Seabass)

Anyway, what I want to write about is the toothfish I made last night. That’s the one pictured above and, yep, toothfish is also the name for Chilean sea bass. I rarely buy Chilean sea bass because of its endangered species status. But sometimes I’m like a reformed alcoholic who’s hanging out with a bunch of people enjoying drinks and who falls off the wagon (I recently learned where that expression came from, but that’s another story). Once in a great while I cook Chilean sea bass. It’s in my top five things swimming in water that I love to eat. (Notice I said swimming!) This particular specimen came with the skin on which, after being pan sautéed, provided such a stunning graphic pattern that I rushed my plated dinner in front of the camera.

Here’s how I made this meal in less than twenty minutes. First, I cooked some fregola in water and a little bit of lobster stock (I just happened to be making lobster bisque from the leftover lobster shells from Vicki and Ronnie’s lobster dinner party on Friday night, if you recall). Fregola, or fregula, is a Sardinian pasta equivalent to couscous, but much more interesting in taste and texture.  It comes in varying sizes, but “typically consists of semolina dough that has been rolled into balls 2-3 mm in diameter and toasted in an oven.” While the fregola was cooking I added a tablespoon or so of sea salt and several grinds of fresh pepper.

In a small sauce pan I combined 3 tablespoons of chopped shallots, a bay leaf, 5 or 6 black peppercorns, a cup of dry white wine, and ½ cup of the lobster stock that was sitting on the range…just because it was there.  I reduced it over medium high as I continued to prepare the fish and the spinach.

While the pasta was cooking, I threw 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter into a small stockpot, I added ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, and melted the butter for my spinach. Meanwhile, in a heavy sauté pan, I heated up 3 tablespoons of canola oil, and once the oil was real hot, but not smoking, I added my Chilean sea bass pieces, skin side down after I patted them dry and pressed out as much water as I could by applying pressure with my hand. I sautéed the fish for four minutes while I tossed my washed and dried spinach into the stock pot with the hot butter and nutmeg and covered with a lid, turning the heat down to medium.

My pasta was cooking nicely. I turned off the heat under the spinach. After four minutes, I flipped the fish. The skin was a nice crispy golden brown. I cooked it on high heat for another minute, turned the heat off and put a lid on the pan. I then let it rest for about five minutes while I got plates warmed. At this point I strained my reduced sauce and beat in 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  Lastly I removed the warmed plates from the microwave and plated the spinach first, then added the drained pasta and topped it with the cooked fish, drizzling a little of the sauce over everything.

As I said earlier, when I saw it plated I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of it; and as gorgeous as it looks, believe me, it tasted even better.

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