Even though I think I’m always prepared for the possibility, I’m still pretty surprised when a meal exceeds my expectations.

This one went out of the park.

I’m taking a good look at this picture of the first outing of my old, recently re-tinned pan, because I’m pretty sure it’s not ever going to look this shiny again.

The tilefish started out pretty shiny as well.

• three tablespoons of rich Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ allowed to melt inside a newly-re-tinned vintage oval copper au gratin pan in a 475ª oven until barely browned, then adding the bulbs of 4 ramps from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm sliced crosswise, the leaves sliced lengthwise, and more than 3 tablespoons of chopped herbs (lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge; spearmint from Stokes Farm; sage, parsley, and dill from Phillips Farms) scattered around the pan, one beautiful tilefish fillet (17 ounces) from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, placed inside the pan skinned side down, roasted, the oven turned down to about 450º as a compromise with the requirement of the vegetable, turning once, for about 12 minutes, or until done, removed to the plates, sauced with the pan juices
• three Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Chelsea Whole Foods, halved, added to the pan with the tilefish during its last few minutes in the oven

• one pound of asparagus, with spears of various thicknesses, from Phillips Farms, the tough ends snapped off, and much of the length of the few wider stems peeled, rolled inside a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan with a handful of thyme branches from Stokes Farm in a little more than a tablespoon of olive oil, a little salt, and ground black pepper, roasted at 425º for about 20 or 25 minutes, then drizzled with a bit of Whole Foods Market organic lemon when they were arranged on the plates
• the wine was an Italian (Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol) white, Alois Lageder Pinot Bianco 2017, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Ernst KRENEK: Complete Piano Concertos, Volume TWO’, with Mikhail Korzhev and the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods

I’m not entirely happy with this meal, although I have to say it was actually pretty delicious. It’s not really my style, either in the preparation or the presentation, since, as it turned our, both seemed to make it more of a fish stew than a grill, a sautée or a bake, any of which I would prefer to work with when cooking a fairly delicate fish.

There’s actually an explanation for what I would call the raggedness of this dish. I had welcomed the chance to do something very different from the tilefish I had cooked before, and the Mark Bittman recipe I found on line seemed to fit that and several other parameters: It included white cabbage, and I had been looking for an entrée in which I might include the large head I was keeping in the crisper; it was essentially a one-dish meal, saving me the trouble of coming up with a vegetable accompaniment, and also the cooking of it; and it looked like it would be low stress, since among its other virtues, it wasn’t going to make me flip the fish half-way through the cooking process; plus, it seemed like it wouldn’t take much time to move it from refrigerator to table.

Yet what happened was that I became seriously distracted by a loss of hot water in the apartment just as I was beginning to put the meal together. It came back less than an hour later, but by then both my concentration and my mood had been somewhat fouled. I’m not even sure how I was able to bring it about in the end.

I can’t say it was a failure, but I may not try to repeat it, if only for its aesthetic inadequacies. I have a problem with what it looked like on the plates, but I have to admit that I did forget to add the prescribed garnish of a chopped herb. There was also my discomfort with what seemed to me an unwieldy process: Because of the difficulty of cooking such a large amount of cabbage, and the fact that one of the ingredients was acidic, I found it necessary to use 2 pans for what should have been an operation requiring only one.

ADDENDUM: Now that I’ve gotten all the way through a description of this meal, I’m thinking the recipe could be saved, and I might do it again, making certain adjustments to allow for my sensibilities.

The pictures below are of the two main ingredients as they appeared at the Union Square Greenmarket.

• two 8-ounce tilefish fillets from Pura Vida Seafood, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, their skin sides dredged with corn flour (alternatively, wheat flour), sautéed, breaded side down, in a third of a cup of olive oil over a medium-high flame inside a large,  -inch seasoned cast iron pan until they had become crisp on that surface, removed and set aside on a warm platter, and 3 quarters of a pound or more of leaves peeled off from a washed head of a one-pound Savoy cabbage from Norwich Meadows Farm, gathered, stacked, and shredded, added to the pan in which the pollock had been seared, and cooked, stirring occasionally until the cabbage had wilted, then, with the cabbage now wilted and occupying a much smaller volume, it could now be placed inside a large heavy, vintage, oval tin-lined copper fish pan, and 8 halved Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market partially  embedded in the cabbage, followed by a third to a half cup of pitted Gaeta olives and a tablespoon of rinsed salted Sicilian capers, both from Buon Italia, and about half a cup of white wine, stirred together over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes had softened and the cabbage had become tender, at which point the pollock fillets were placed, skin, or dredged side up, on top of the cooked vegetables and the contents of the pan cooked over a medium flame, undisturbed, until the fish had cooked through, or 5 to 10 minutes more, served on 2 plates with the vegetables surrounding the fillets, everything drizzled with the small amount of  pan juices that remained, garnished with chopped lovage from Two Guys From Woodbridge (although in the end I completely forgot the lovage part)
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont) white, Banfi Piemonte Principessa Gavia Gavi 2016, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1779-1780 opera, ‘Zaide’, Ian Page conducting the Orchestra of Classical Opera

It’s not really much “like lobster”, as some would have it, but it is a sweet fish, in more than one sense.

I’ve written a bit about tilefish in an earlier post.

It’s difficult to imagine that it was once included within that hoary commercial seafood classification, ‘trash fish’, along with, among others species I would now consider delicacies, like sea robin, dogfish, and even redfish, hake, and porgy.

These 2 fillets were my first choice at the fishmongers’ on Friday.

I was reluctant to turn on the oven on a very warm night, and I didn’t want to use any of the preparations that are my usual alternatives to roasting. I looked around on line and found this simple and very delicious recipe, making only a few alterations.

The polenta included in the photograph accompanying the recipe would have been very nice, but I had some vegetables to bring out last night.

They were: some very deep green and very fresh okra, the very last little basket at the stand where I found it (also, the only okra I saw that day and the only okra I’ve seen so far this year); and a small amount of beautiful rainbow chard that I had washed and rinsed 2 days earlier, before realizing I had more than enough for that night’s meal.

I also had some slightly eccentric additions I wanted to add to the tilefish: the last of the garlic flowers I had enjoyed scattering on top of so many things for at least a whole week; and a package of near-micro nasturtium leaves I had picked up that day.

• two 9-ounce tilefish fillets from Pure Vida Seafood, washed, rinsed, patted dry, sprinkled lightly with sea salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper and set aside; 2 tablespoons of butter and part of one small dried dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia heated over medium heat and one whole garlic clove from Norwich Meadows Farm allowed to roast in the warm butter for a few minutes, until it started to color (I found the butter beginning to color just before the garlic did, but that didn’t present a problem) and then removed, the tilefish fillets added to the pan flesh side down and cooked, still over medium heat, for maybe 2 minutes, allowing them to also brown, after which they were flipped over and 2 tablespoons of chopped spring shallots from Alewife Farm were tossed in, the butter mixture spooned over the fish (I usually find it easier to use a silicone basting brush), after which the pan was covered with aluminum foil for about 2  minutes and removed, the juices once again spooned or brushed over the the fillets until they had browned and been cooked through (perhaps for another 2 minutes), when they were removed to the plates, sprinkled with lemon zest (of an Organic lemon from Whole Foods Market) and a little lemon juice, a bit of garlic flowers scattered on top, chopped lightly, and some rather small nasturtium leaves from Two Guys from Woodbridge draped across the middle of the fillets
• okra from Oak Grove Plantation, sautéed over a high flame in a large enameled cast iron pan with a little olive oil, seasoned with sea salt
• a portion of a bunch of rainbow chard from Echo Creek Farm, the larger part of which had already been made a part of this meal 2 days earlier, wilted in a little olive oil in which 2 halved garlic cloves from Norwich Meadows Farm had been heated, then seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper and drizzled with a little olive oil, served in small oval bowls to the side of the plates
• the wine was an Italian (Campania) white, Terredora Falanghina 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Musick For Severall Friends’, a compendium of seventeenth-century English music by the composers John Wilson, Christopher Simpson, Johann Schop, Henry Butler, and Matthew Locke, with Mary Springfels directing the Newberry Consort

I’ve said before that I don’t think Tilefish is very well known here, and that still seems surprising, since, above everything else it has great flavor and it remains a very good bargain.  Tilefish has a mild, sweet flavor, apparently shaped by what it largely feeds upon at the bottom of the Continental Shelf, and that includes crab, shrimp, and snails.

Tilefish catches, off Long Island at least, also seem to get high marks for sustainability, an additional encouragement, and the fish that I bring home always comes from small boats, not factories.

I’ve included this information while assuming that the Golden Tilefish, or Lopholatilus chamaelonticeps, pictured below, is the species whose fillets I purchased at the Greenmarket on Friday:

• three tablespoons of Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter allowed to melt inside a tin-lined oval copper au gratin pan in a 475ª oven until barely browned, 3 or 4 roughly-chopped ramp leaves and at least 3 tablespoons of 6 chopped herbs (rosemary from Stokes Farm, sage from S. & S.O. Produce Farm, parsley from Norwich Meadows Farm, dill and mint from Phillips Farm, and thyme from Eataly) scattered around the pan, 2 fillets of tilefish (7 ounces each) from Blue Moon Fish Company, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, placed inside, skinned side down, then roasted, turning once, for about 12 minutes, or until done, removed to the plates, sauced with the pan juices
• six Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, halved, warmed in a little olive oil with some chopped wild garlic (bulbs and stems) from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, sprinkled with scissored chives from Stokes Farm and garnished with a bit of some remaining chopped mixed herbs

• a small bunch of collards from Norwich Meadows Farm and a smaller amount of upland cress from Paffenroth Gardens, torn into small sections (most of the stems were tender enough to include in the cooking), washed several times and drained, transferred to a smaller bowl very quickly, in order to retain as much of the water clinging to them as possible, wilted inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pot in which 4 small garlic cloves from from Lucky Dog Organic Farm had first been allowed to sweat in a bit of olive oil, a little crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia along with them, the greens finished with a little salt, freshly-ground pepper, a bit of sweet local lemon juice from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, ROX Scott Peterson Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2015 from Naked Wines
• the music was Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 21 and 23, plus Johann Christian Bach’s Symphony in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6, and Grand Overtures, Op. 18, all performed by Academy for Ancient Music Berlin

I’ve cooked the noble Atlantic tilefish a number of times, usually following this Melissa Clark recipe, but on Friday I decided to go a very different route. I began with Mark Bittman’s general outline for preparing most any white fish fillets roasted with potatoes, but didn’t stop there.

There were potatoes.

The entire meal, except for the fresh watercress, was cooked inside one glazed terra cotta oven pan.

• one pound of Carola potatoes from Dave Harris’s Max Creek Hatchery in the Union Square Greenmarket, sliced about 1/4″ thick, tossed with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt, and pepper, arranged overlapping inside a glazed ceramic pan and roasted in a 425º oven for 10 minutes, the pan then turned around and left for an additional 10 minutes, or until the potatoes had begun to turn brown (perhaps even a bit beyond that point), removed from the oven and scattered with one tablespoon of chopped fresh sage from Eataly, one teaspoon (or more) of minced garlic from Healthway Farms & CSA, and a bit of some home-dried golden habanada, after which two 7.5-ounce tilefish fillets [Lopholatilus Chamaeleonticeps, aka Great Northern Tilefish, Golden Tilefish, etc.] from Pure Vida Seafood, seasoned with salt and pepper, were placed on the top top of the potatoes, the fish drizzled with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and placed inside the oven until cooked through (10 minutes, or a little more), removed to the plates, garnished with the pan juices and a little chopped parsley from Eataly
• a bit of baby red watercress from Windfall Farms, dressed with a good Campania olive oil (Campania D.O.P. Penisola Sorrentina ‘Syrenum’)
• The wine was a California (grapes from the Sacramento River Delta with a small amount of Viognier from Lodi) white, Miriam Alexandra Chenin Blanc California 2016, by Alexandra Farber, from Naked Wines
• the music was Mozart’s 1781 opera, ‘Idomeneo’, René Jacobs conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester