Search for tardivo - 14 results found

sea bass with mussels, tomato, saffron; tardivo, rosemary

Surf and surf.

There wasn’t enough sea bass left in the bucket at the market, so, beating Paul to the punch this time (he usually asks, “anything else?” even when I’ve already selected 2 full portions of something, I added a bit of shellfish that had also been harvested from our local waters.

It’s now been 3 weeks since I prepared this meal, and I don’t remember whether I had found the recipe that I ended up (mostly) using while I was still at the fish stand deciding on whether to buy the mussels, or that evening, when I was ready to prepare the meal. My memory of the details of the cooking are also necessarily a little sketchy, but I can describe the origin of most of the ingredients:

  • two 5-ounce portions of local sea bass fillet from Pura Vida Seafood; eight ounces of local mushrooms, also from Pura Vida Seafood; fresh thyme from West Side Market (Uncle Vinny’s brand). two medium orange local heirloom tomatoes that I’d ripened on the windowsill, from Eckerton Hill Farm; a stalk from the greens of a celery root from Norwich Meadows Farms substituting for fennel; equal parts Millport Dairy Farm yogurt and a local Organic Farms whole milk substituting for double cream; a bit of wild cress from Lani’s Farm substituting for the samphire or sea beans; micro celery from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • tardivo from Willow Wisp Farm, washed under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut in 4 sections lengthwise and a V-cut made most of the way through the root end, allowing that part to cook more rapidly, tossed with a little olive oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged inside an enameled cast iron pan over medium-high heat, one of their cut sides down, each covered with a couple of rosemary sprigs from Stokes Farm, cooked for a few minutes then turned onto a second cut side and cooked for a few more, and finally turned and cooked briefly onto the third, before they were arranged on the plates [this beautiful chicory can be served warm or room temperature after cooking]
  • the wine was a Portuguese (Vinho Verde/Monção and Melgaço) white, Quinta do Regueiro, Regueiro Alvarinho Reserva 2018, from Flatiron Wines
  • the music was Berlioz’s ‘La Damnation de Faust’, John Nelson conduting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, with singers including singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal

sautéed sea bass; mushrooms, chili, lemon, parsley; tardivo

The 4 or 5 rows of colors and textures look great here, but I decided to also include a low angle detail image.

 

Even under ordinary circumstances it’s difficult to resist the aesthetic and taste appeal of sea bass fillets, but when they’re on sale, as they were on Wednesday, it’s virtually impossible.

This is also a very easy fish to cook. In this case it was merely seasoned with salt and pepper and briefly sautéed in a combination of butter and oil. The mushrooms that accompanied it were prepared after the fish had been cooked, although using the same pan, with the juices that remained.

  • two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from American Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature, but if left outside an oven they should at least be covered a little to retain their warmth),

then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 5 ounces of beautiful chestnut mushrooms from Gail’s Farm stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, cut up, mostly into 2, maybe 3 pieces each, sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a pinch of a hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm and my last fresh habanada pepper of the season, chopped, from Alewife Farm), a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley from Phillips Farms, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic California Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates to the side of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)

  • one medium head of tardivo, a very special chicory, a beautiful form of radicchio that originated in northern Italy, that I found in the stall of Willow Wisp Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket that same afternoon, prepared by washing it under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut into 4 segments lengthwise, and a V-cut made most of the way through the root ends of each, which allowed that dense part to cook more evenly with the remainder, the quarters arranged inside a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan cut side up, covered with a few thyme sprigs from Keith’s Farm, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil, baked inside a 400º oven for about 12 minutes, then turned over and cooked for some 8 minutes more, turned once more so a cut side is once again facing up, returned to the oven once again, but, this time for only a couple minutes or so, or until the stem ends were tender when pierced with a thin blunt metal pin (my all-purpose kitchen tester), removed from the oven [note: the tardivo can be served either hot or warm]
  • the plate was garnished with a row of micro nasturtium from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • the wine was an Italian (Lombardy) white, Lugana, Ca’ Lojera 2018, from Astor Wines
  • the music was an album of very early Mozart symphonies, Gottfried von der Goltz conducting the Freiburger Barockorchestra

 

[I had forgotten to photograph the mushrooms last Wednesday, so the image I used here is one I took last May, but of the same variety, and from the same farm, cropped differently]

marinated, breaded swordfish, potatoes; tardivo, balsamic

Dinner was good, very good. While we were enjoying it I thought to myself, surprisingly good, but if I had considered our routinely good experiences with the terrific fresh swordfish we can get in Manhattan, I couldn’t have been surprised.

  • one beautiful 16.5 ounce swordfish steak from American Seafood Company halved, marinated on an ironstone platter for about 45 minutes, turning once, in a mixture of a few tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of chopped fresh, slowly drying, but still very sweet and pungent tarragon from Stokes Farm, a bit of peperoncino Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia, a small section of a home-dried habanada pepper, and the chopped white sections of one very small Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, after which the swordfish was drained, both sides covered with a coating of homemade dried breadcrumbs, and pan-grilled over medium-high heat for 3 or 4 minutes on each side, or until barely (or, actually, not quite) cooked to the center, then removed from the pan and arranged on 2 plates, sprinkled with a little Maldon salt, some of the chopped greener parts of the scallion, drizzled with a bit of juice from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon and garnished with a little purple micro radish from Windfall Farms
  • ten or so ounces of of ‘pinto’ potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with some Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper, tossed with some roughly cut lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • two mid size red chicories (radicchio), that were something like a cross between treviso and tardivo, or what Chris and Jessi of Campo Rosso Farm have dubbed, ‘Rosa di Campo Rosso’, sliced broadly, sautéed until barely wilted inside an antique medium, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which one sliced Camelot shallot from Quarton Farm had already been heated until it had softened, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, finished with a dash of balsamic vinegar, arranged on the plates, and drizzled with a little olive oil
  • the wine, totally new to us, was a wonderful Greek (Mantinia/Peloponnese) white, Troupis Hoof and Lur 2017 [for a little about newer Greek wines, including this one, look here], from Copake Wine Works, which is also pretty new to us (we expect to regularly order more from them)
  • the music was Tchaikovsky’s 1892 lyric opera, ‘Iolanta’, Emmanuel Villaume conducting the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slovenian Chamber Choir, with Anna Netrebko, Sergey Skorokhodov, Alexey Marko, and Vitalij Kowaljow

sea bass on a bed of mushrooms and ramps; grilled tardivo

Last night I tweeted that I had found my go-to recipe for sea bass. I’ll elucidate.

I had arrived early (early for me) at the greenmarket that day, so there was a huge selection at the fish stand. Filtering out the various finfish and shellfish I’d cooked recently, which accounted for a good number, I narrowed our dinner choice down to 2 very fresh half-pound sea bass fillets. A few minutes later I found some terrific-looking greens, and a favorite crunchy multigrain baguette.

I thought I was all set, but once I arrived home I remembered that I had a lot of ramps, and a small bag of oyster mushrooms in the refrigerator.  I had been determined to prepare the fish in the most minimal way I could this time, and concentrate on producing a beautiful crispy skin, so I worked at coming up with a recipe that would fit the new program. What you see above was the product, and the tweet described my excitement with the result.

I’m only sorry I didn’t spend a little more time on the photograph above, because the meal tasted far more exciting than it looks.

I placed some radishes on the kitchen counter for the cook and his muse to nibble on while before the meal was served.

Otherwise the dinner was contained in one course.

  • *three stems of spring garlic from from John D. Madura Farm, cut into one-inch lengths, sautéed until softened in a little Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil and Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ inside a large rectangular, enameled cast iron pan over medium heat, then removed and discarded, or maybe set aside for another day [NOTE: this first step, in which mature garlic could be substituted at other times of the year is definitely optional, especially if the cook is in a hurry], a little more oil and butter added, the flame raised to medium-high and two nearly-8-ounce sea bass fillets from Pura Vida Seafood Company, previously rinsed, dried with paper towels, and seasoned with sea salt, added to the pan and seared, skin side down first, for 3 to 4 minutes (the skin should be nicely golden and fairly crisp by then), turned over and cooked for another minute or so, removed and placed on 2 plates, kept warm, either in a warm oven or tented with aluminum foil, while 2 ounces of chopped yellow oyster mushrooms from Blue Oyster Cultivation were added to the skillet and sautéed until slightly undercooked, more oil added once again, if necessary, and a dozen or so trimmed and washed young ramps from Lucky Dog Organic Farm tossed in (the bulbs chopped, the greens sliced), and sautéed for roughly one minute, the ramps and mushrooms divided between the 2 warm plates and a bass fillet placed on each ‘bed’, finished with a generous squeeze of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, and garnished with chopped bronze fennel from Norwich Meadows Farm, ending with lemon wedges placed on the side of the plates [NOTE: the mushrooms are an option, and their quantity can vary a bit, but they really enrich the flavors of both the fish and the ramps]

cooks critique: the bed of mushrooms and ramps should have been more visible; and while I eventually realized the bass had in fact been cooked perfectly, there was a scary moment after I first cut into one of the fillets to check its color and opacity (it’s no fun even contemplating having to return any seafood to a heat source once it’s arrived on the plate); finally, I described it as my “go-to recipe now for sea bass, and yet it clearly includes a few very specifically-seasonal ingredients, so my explanation is that all of those lend themselves to one or more substitutions (mature garlic for spring garlic; any mushrooms, even reconstituted ones, for the oyster mushrooms; almost anything green, herb or vegetable, for the ramps; and all kinds of herbs or micro greens would love to stand in for the bronze fennel

  • slices, or more like wedges, of a terrific multigrain baguette from Bread Alone
  • one small head of a northern Italian tardivo radicchio from Flatiron Eataly [I felt guilty that it wasn’t local, but it looked so pretty on the shelf, I love that very special chicory, and I realized it meant I wouldn’t have to wait maybe 6 months for the wonderful Campo Rosso Farm‘s crop for my next hit], washed under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut in 4 sections lengthwise and a V-cut made most of the way through the root end, allowing that part to cook more rapidly, tossed with a little olive oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged inside an enameled cast iron pan over medium-high heat, one of their cut sides down, each covered with a couple of rosemary sprigs from Stokes Farm, cooked for a few minutes then turned onto a second cut side and cooked for a few more, and finally turned and cooked briefly onto the third, before they were arranged on the plates [note: the tardivo can be served either hot or warm, so it’s an excellent low-stress accompaniment to meats or fish]
  • the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2017, from Naked Wines
  • the music was the Berlin Classics album, ‘Vivaldi: La Venezia di Anna Maria’

grilled chorizo; roasted sweet potato, sorrel; tardivo, thyme

It was an amazing collaboration of ingredients, really surprising me when I had only expected a workaday dinner. I knew we would enjoy the very special chicory, even if it had come all the way from northern Italy, and of course the sweet potatoes as well. Adding some sorrel to the latter was a last minute decision, but it turned out to be a very good one.  Finally, I always forget how good this Amish farm’s spicy chorizo really is, and (almost) the last of a jar of a wonderful well-made sweet/tart jelly was exactly what it needed.

  • *four 2-ounce links of a very good chorizo sausage from Millport Dairy Farm, pan grilled for a few minutes over a medium flame until heated through, served with a dollop of a garlic oregano jelly from Berkshire Berries [note: I didn’t remove the collagen casings, because I had not been aware they were there until John told me the next day, when I showed him the photograph above, but neither the flavor nor the texture of the sausage was negatively effected)
  • *two Japanese sweet potatoes from Samascott Orchards, unpeeled, but scrubbed thoroughly, halved and sliced into one half-inch rounds and crescents, tossed in a bowl with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, 4 unpeeled Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith’s Farm, and a bit of crushed golden/orange dried habanada pepper, originally fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm last fall, spread onto a large well-seasoned Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan, roasted at 400º for about 20 or 25 minutes, garnished with red-vein sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • *one  medium head of a northern Italian tardivo radicchio from Flatiron Eataly, prepared mostly using this simple recipe, washing it under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut in half lengthwise, and a V-cut made most of the way through the root end, allowing that part to cook more rapidly, the halves arranged inside a small Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan cut side up, covered with thyme sprigs from Westside Market, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil, baked inside the 400º oven in which the sweet potatoes were cooking, for about 12 minutes, turned over and cooked for some 8 minutes more, turned a second time so the cut side is once again up, returned to the oven, this time for only a couple minutes or so, or until the stem ends were tender when pierced with a thin blunt metal pin (my all-purpose kitchen tester), removed from the oven [note: the tardivo can be served either hot or warm]
  • *the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) red, Cardedu, Canonau di Sardegna “Caladu”, 2013, from Flatiron Wines
  • *the music was the album, ‘Scherzi Musicali’, with jokey music by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Ignaz Biber, and Johann Jakob Walther, Reinhard Goebel conducting Musica Antiqua Cologne