Sea Bass 3 Ways

First, I must explain how I acquired 1.5lbs of $30/lb fish.

Anna works at Central Market’s seafood department,very upscale, fresh and knowledgeable. Her coworker was filleting this 100lb fish, he didn’t do a perfect job, and left some meat on the bones. At the end of her shift they trimmed off the rest of the meat and split it between them. This evening after school, I made three sauces to try with the fish. Since it is such a nice fish, I wanted to have a little fun with it in the kitchen.

I felt very thankful when I made my ingredient list, that I have such a well stocked pantry, we only spent 10$ on ingredients. Overall, this was a very good learning experience. I should also let you know I used my Vita-mix (the Rolls Royce of blenders) for all 3 sauces. It was a Christmas gift from my parents, and I have used it every.single.day. Most of the things I make with it don’t make it onto the Food Blog though, because they are breakfast smoothies or bean dips. It is extremely heavy duty and sounds like a freaking car engine when I turn it on.. and I am in love. I won’t go on and on, but you should you-tube it or watch the infomercial if you are interested in why I am so so crazy about a blender. Any way… the sauces:

Sauce #1 Asian Citrus Glaze

2 small oranges
1 tangerine
½ c pineapple
1T sesame oil
1 ½ T soy sauce
½ t ginger juice
1/8t cayenne
garnish with tangerine and mango

Tip: getting ginger juice without a juicer. Store your ginger in the freezer. When you ready to use it, with a very sharp knife chop off the amount you need. Let it thaw. Once it thaws it will be very soft, and you can squeeze the juice right out of it. If you don’t have time to let it thaw then nuke it for 30 seconds on high, let it cool down for a minute, then squeeze.

There are lots of ways you can juice citrus, right? Today, I sliced off the top and bottom of each piece, the carefully cut off all the skin, and bitter white “pith” with a very sharp serrated knife. Then I dropped the oranges and tangerine into then blender with the pineapple, and made juice. I pushed the juice through a fine mesh sieve to remove the fibers, and into the pan.Then I turned on the heat to medium, whisked in the rest of the ingredients and reduced it by half. It was a beautiful beautiful thing.

Sauce #2 Red Pepper & Olive Tapenade

This was actually more like a tapenade. If I would have pureed it more and added more liquid it would have been a sauce, but technically it was not.

1 roasted red bell pepper
1/3 c kalamata olives
3T prepared basil pesto
2T olive oil
dash of balsamic vinegar
1/3 c breadcrumbs (preferably Italian style)
garnish with chopped parsley and lemon

Pulse the first 5 ingredients in a food processor or blender. Remove, then fold in the bread crumbs. This would make a beautiful brushetta.

Sauce #3 Miso Mustard Marinade

Our hands-down favorite for the sea bass

2T filtered water
1T mustard (I used a fancy habanero tangerine mustard)
1/3 c white miso
2T rice vinegar
2 ½ T mirin (Japanese Rice Cooking Wine)
3t sugar
1T soy sauce
1c ground Ritz crackers
garnish with green onions and sesame seeds

Blend the ingredients together in a food processor or blender.
Drench the fish in the sauce then roll in the crumbs.

We cooked all the fish in a pan, with a drizzle of olive oil. It is a very oily fish and from what I have read, usually Seabass is steamed or cooked in parchment(which also steams the fish.)

Anna and I loved all the sauces. But some of them worked better with the Bass than others.

Sauce #1 was muted by the flavor of the fish, which was very surprising to me since it was a reduction and the flavors were concentrated. I am saving this, because I have about ¾ c left over.. so, we’ll see where it ends up. Sauce #2 overpowered the fish, I probably should have put less of it on the plate, but didn’t want to have the same mistake as the first time. The leftovers will pronanly get spread on toast, crackers or a sandwich. Maybe a quesadilla..mmmm. Sauce #3 was perfect. In fact, we battered the left over fish and froze it for later (we were quite full at this point.) The mustard and miso flavors went really well together. If I make this again, I would probably want to use a little bit more mustard (its so good) and a little bit less mirin & less sugar. (it was quite sweet.)