As I wrote in my first outing with this original, we love our local Sfoglini pasta. On Tuesday I prepared a meal using the second half of a package of their Bronx brewery BxB radiators.

• 8 ounces of Sfoglini Pasta Shop‘s Bronx brewery BxB radiators (“spent grain from Bronx Rye Pale Ale, which is comprised of five different barley malts, resulting in a roasted barley finish”, according to the maker), carefully boiled to ‘safe territory’, that is, something between ‘too hard’ and ‘too mushy’, drained, tossed inside a large tin-lined heavy tall-sided copper pan in which a simple sauce had been created by warming two ramp bulbs from Max Creek Hatchery, chopped, with a bit of crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia until the alliums had mostly softened and given off a gentle aroma, before some upland cress from Paffenroth Gardens and the roughly-chopped green leaves of most of a bunch of ramps (Max Creek Hatchery) were added and stirred over a low to medium flame until barely wilted, with some reserved pasta water to emulsify the sauce, seasoned with a little salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, divided into 2 shallow bowls, a little olive oil drizzled around the edges of the pasta, some Parmigiano-Reggiano Vache Rosse from Eataly slivered over the top
• the wine was an Austrian (Kremstal) white, Steinig Grüner Veltliner Austria 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was from the album, ‘C. P. E. Bach: Symphonies & Concertos‘

Leftovers.

Surprisingly, we actually did have some hare leftover after the feast; I think it was because I hadn’t reduced the proportion of the remaining recipe ingredients to match the smaller weight of the hare I had used.  In truth, what we had left from the earlier dinner was hare ragù, but what a wonderful readymade for new dinner, and I don’t remeber how many times I’d thought of preparing such a rich sauce from scratch, just to be able to serve it on pasta.  I’m always especially on the alert for things I might serve on very good egg noodles, so the rich game sauce resting  in the refrigerator was doubly appreciated.

I also still had a small amount of braised red cabbage I had cooked for an earlier dinner, some of which had already found its way into a second meal, so this would be the dish’s third appearance.

To freshen up the plate, in addition to some chopped parsley on the ragù, I added some fresh, peppery cress.

• hare ragù remaining from a dinner two days previous, served on boiled Pappardelle Antica Madia, from Eataly, and finished with chopped parsley from Whole Foods
• upland cress (Live Gourmet) from WF , not dressed
• sweet and sour red cabbage with fennel remaining from still another earlier dinner
• the wine was a Spanish red, Juan Gil Jumilla Monastrell 2012

These beautiful grey sole fillets came from Rick Lofstad’s Pura Vida Seafood, whose colorful 55′ fishing vessel, ‘All For Joy’ (which was presumably his flagship), had capsized on the Sunday before I purchased them at the Union Square Greenmarket on Friday.

Earlier today on this blog I wrote about the incident and my huge respect for The Captain, who is something of an area legend, as well as for all the intrepid fishers who bring such treasures from the sea to all of us, from stalls in Union Square and in local markets throughout the larger New York area.

We wish the heroic sea captain our best, and we expect to be enjoying his catch forever, or at least for as long as all of us are still up to working it.

While there was not quite three quarters of a pound of fish, the small size of the fillets meant that they would cover a large area, giving me a chance to again use my new toy, this huge old pan.

• six 2-ounce grey sole fillets from Pura Vida Seafood, dried thoroughly, salted and brushed with a good white wine vinegar, sautéed briefly in a little olive oil and a bit of of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ inside a heavy antique low-sided 13″ copper pan (I needed a large surface for these small fillets),  turning once, then removed to 2 plates, the pan wiped with a paper towel before introducing 2 or 3  tablespoons of butter, 2 tablespoons or so of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, and some upland cress, at least a handful cut from a live hydroponically-grown plant from Two Guys from Woodbridge, allowed to heat for a minute or so, when the buttery sauce was poured over the sole, lemon quarters served on the side
• about 16 ounces of ‘mature’ (they had been in the crisper for a while, which may explain why, at the end, they cooked very fast and wrinkled up a bit) Kyoto carrots from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, freshly ground black pepper, more than half of a teaspoon of crushed Italian fennel seed, and a bit of crushed dried habanada pepper, arranged inside a large unglazed ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan, roasted at 400º for about 30 minutes, arranged on the plates and garnished with  micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a modest amount of really, really sweet purple kale from Norwich Meadows Farm (remaining from a supply that was probably mixed with some from Lani’s Farm), wilted inside a large enameled cast iron pot in which one halved garlic clove from Norwich Meadows had first been allowed to sweat in a little olive oil until pungent, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Evangelos Bagias Lodi Chardonnay 2017, from Naked Wines
• the music was an album of  Johann Schobert’s quartets, trios, and sonatas, performed by Ensemble 415; little is known of his origins, but his career, and his music, speak for themselves (his demise was something else)

Every once in a while I have to be reminded of just how good a piece of sole can be, or any other mild flat fish for that matter. On Friday it was Pura Vida Seafood Paul Mendelsohn’s turn: I often ask a fish seller what I should buy that day, mostly because I’ve almost always cooked every kind of seafood in the selection I’m looking at, and it’s good to be pointed to something that someone who knows her or his catch might feel especially good about.

This time it was lemon sole, and it turned out to be fantastic!

• two small lemon sole fillets (a total of 15 ounces) from Pura Vida Seafood, dried thoroughly, salted on both sides (I also sprinkled a little freshly-ground black pepper on them this time) and brushed with a little good Italian white wine vinegar (Aceto Cesare Bianco white wine vinegar from Buon Italia), coated with a thin layer of a local whole wheat flour from the Blew family of Oak Grove Mills in the Union Square Greenmarket, and sautéed over a medium-high flame inside a very heavy vintage oval tin-lined copper pan in 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil, for a couple minutes, turned and cooked for another minute or so (the exact time, or even an approximate time will always depend on the thickness of the fish and the heat of the pan), the fillets removed and the pan wiped with a paper towel, 2 tablespoons of rich Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, 3 tablespoons of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, and a loose handful of hydroponic upland cress (sold live, with roots in water) from Two Guys from Woodbridge, everything warmed for a minute or so, either over a low flame or none at all, the sauce then drizzled onto the sole

• 5 medium size Kennebec potatoes (15 ounces) from Windfall Farms, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in heavily-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with a little more than a tablespoon of butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper, garnished with crumbled dried red shishito peppers (not hot, but tasty and very colorful for the plate) from Lani’s Farm

• the delicious separated leaves from 2 small beautiful purple Rosaine bibb lettuce plants from Norwich Meadows Farm, drizzled with what I am currently using both in cooking and in finishing, Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil (unfiltered, unrefined, and cold pressed)
• the wine was a brilliant Greek (Peloponnese) white, Tetramythos Muscat Sec 2015, from Copake Wine Works
• the music was Vivaldi’s 1727 dramma per musica, ‘Orlando Furioso’, Jean-Christophe Spinosi conducting the Ensemble Matheus and Les Elements Chamber Choir

I have no idea how it came together so perfectly tonight, but this was one of the best sea bass entrées I’ve ever brought to the table.

I’ve just realized, as I write this, how few ingredients went into this entrée. The bass included only olive oil and butter, the mushrooms the remaining fish juices, a little more butter, lemon, and parsley. The cress had a tiny bit of olive oil, and the micro radish of course went bare.

• 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), otherwise covered at least a little to retain their warmth, then 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, plus 6 ounces of oyster mushrooms [pleurotus ostreatus] from the Bulich Mushroom Company‘s stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, as is virtually everything else involved in this or most of these meals, cut into large-ish pieces (in this case, mostly just detaching the lobes from the centers), sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, the mushrooms seasoned with salt, pepper, adding both a couple tablespoons of some very well packaged parsley from Eataly, chopped, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more before both everything in the pan was spooned onto or at the side of the fish (I think the skin of the bass is too beautiful to entirely disguise), the edge of the plate garnished with micro purple radish from Windfall Farms
• a delicious, chewy ‘original multigrain baguette’ from Bread Alone, not really sliced, but broken up at the table
• some leaves cut from a living upland cress plant brought home in the snow that afternoon from Two Guys from Woodbridge, drizzled with a very little bit of very good Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil
• the wine was a great Portuguese (Vinho Verde) white, Vinho Verde Loureiro, Aphros 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was the 14-year-old Mozart”s 1770 opera seria, ‘Mitridate, rè di Ponto’, with Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques