Note to self:  The rewards of this combination of pasta and green things exceeded its very modest parts.

 

I had been distracted by the need to work with other ingredients ever since I picked up a bag of sorrel at the Greenmarket, but I eventually found myself stressing out over what I would do with this fabulous herb/green before it self-destructed.  Tonight, faced with the need to put together something between a significant seafood meal and a more festive one involving a small rack of lamb,  I decided to take the easy way out and use it to sauce a good pasta.  Sorrel, the new basil!

• one pound of Setaro spaghettini from Buon Italia cooked al dente, then tossed with a sauce made up of the blending (chopping and then transferring to my vintage Osterizer, since I don’t own a food processor and using my huge iron mortar would have taken too long) of two cups of de-stemmed sorrel from John D. Madura Farm, one third of a cup of parsley from Rogowski Farm, two garlic cloves from S. & S.O. Produce Farms, with the addition of one fourth of a cup of pine nuts and one third of a cup of grated Parmesan, both from Buon Italia, salt, and one fourth of a cup of olive oil
• the wine was an Italian white, Paolo Scavino Langhe 2013 from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was the first two hours of a broadcast of Rafael Kubelik’s ‘Parsifal’ on WKCR -FM

Note to self:  a delicious dish, more so for being easy to prepare, adaptable for most white-fleshed fish

 

What is a Red Perch?  I think I’ve finally found the answer, but not before I had probably bored too many very smart people with the question while at a very happy Artsy happy hour last night.

I had been very attracted to the vibrant appearance of these fillets when I saw them in the Greenmarket that day [April 3].  I wasn’t certain the I had ever prepared them in my kitchen, and so naturally I was intrigued even more.  Also, and the price was pretty modest.  I asked Paul, who was standing behind the big ice-filled boxes inside the Pura Vida stall and offering these gorgeous ‘red perch’ fillets to a local fresh seafood-besotted public, to tell me what he knew about the fish.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I read the fish with my own eyes and put together some connections I heard within his narrative.  A few minutes later I was on my way home with four fillets (three ounces or so each), where I continued my investigation on line later that evening.

I quickly learned that there was no record on this food blog of my having ever prepared this fish in the past, so I looked elsewhere, still on line, for some indication of what kind of fish I had purchased.  My search however was surprisingly frustrated (there are tons of different ‘red fish’, perhaps just as many ‘red perch’, and, it seems, an equal number of ‘red ocean perch’). Finally, at around 9:30 tonight, in the recipe section of my own totally analog home library, I picked out a very thin manila folder which I had once marked,  perhaps both optimistically and naively, “Ocean Perch”.  There it was, staring me in the face, a handwritten note which pointed to a real recipe, in a real book, a recipe which turned out to be both familiar and promising.  I must have followed it some time in the past, even if I never made the blog, because the scrap of paper bore the significant notation, actually more of a scribble, “very, very good”.   A few hours later I was able to confirm that it really was.

The appearance, texture and the flavor of the fish reminded me of the delicious freshwater perch I had enjoyed while growing up around the Great (and smaller) Lakes in the Midwest – except for the herb part, and the red part.  I had even caught a few of them myself when I was little more than a toddler (although somebody less squeamish dealt with the hooks and the worms).

• four fillets of ocean perch, or ‘red perch’, from Pura Vida Seafood in the Union Square Greenarket, marinated on the counter for 25 minutes or so with a mixture of chopped herbs, minced garlic from Samascott Orchards, salt, freshly-ground pepper, and olive oil (the herbs were rosemary and oregano from Phillips Farm, parsley from Rogowski Farm, thyme from Keith’s Farm, sorrel from John D. Madura Farm, and tarragon and fresh crumbled bay leaves from Whole Foods), sautéed for about five minutes on the skin side, then two minutes on the other, removed from the pan and finished with a brushing of the marinade and a dusting of finely-chopped sorrel [the basic recipe is from Mark Bittman’s ‘ ‘Herb-marinated perch, cooked four ways’, which appears in his ‘Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking‘]
• four ripe Maine cherry ‘cocktail’ tomatoes from Whole Foods, halved and added to the pan shortly after the fillets were turned
• kale from Rogowski Farm, chopped, wilted with olive oil in which lightly-crushed garlic from Samascott Orchards had been heated with a small amount of dried chiles, then seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, and drizzled with more olive oil
• the wine was a South African White, Raats Original Chenin Blanc 2013, from Chelsea Wine vault
• the music was orchestral works composed by  Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the ninth son of Johann Sebastian

The three images below describe several stages in the perch preparation, beginning with the unwrapped raw fillets lying on a plate,

continuing with the fish marinating,

and ending with a view of the pan before they were removed to the plates

 

The addition of pea sprouts is the only thing that distinguishes this entrée, which is one of our favorites, from this or several other of its antecedents on this site, but it was also enough to bring it gently into this spring season.

• two monkfish tails from American Seafood Company, roasted on top of a bed of peeled, thinly-sliced and seasoned Russet potatoes from Samascott Orchards which had already been roasted (in a very generous amount of olive oil), with a lot of fresh bay leaves from West Side Market and the later addition of half a cup of Kalamata olives from Whole Foods, pits removed, then finished with a sprinkling of pea sprouts from Monkshood Nursery and Gardens
• the wine was a California white, Franc Dusac 2014 Chardonnay Mendocino, from Naked wines
• the music was the third act of Mozart’s ‘Idomoneo’, René Jacobs‘s recording

I hope I’ve never given the impression in this blog that the simpler pasta meals scattered among those which feature fish or meat are merely ‘palate cleansers’, but this meal should give the lie to any such thoughts.  Although it was almost totally an improvisation, in which I was able to take advantage of some ingredients I had on hand which I wanted to use while they were still fresh, the results were impressive, even if they might look pretty modest in any description, visual or written.

It’s a great vegetarian meal, and, had I spared the tablespoon of butter I used to brown the breadcrumbs, and instead used oil (very easily done), it would have been vegan as well.  Also very wine friendly.

I knew that I wanted to serve a pasta, but only after imagining the combination of ingredients did I realize that I had exactly the right pasta, and in exactly the right quantity, meaning a package of eight or so ounces of Afeltra ‘Vesuvio’ which I had opened a month earlier, half of its contents used for a pasta e ceci.   Any variety of this seriously-underappreciated root would do fine, but I had a bunch of tiny breakfast radishes whose greens I had included as a contorni in a meal served a few days ago, and I couldn’t imagine how I might better enjoy these micro roots.  Then there was the last of the Long Island lemon we had been enjoying for over a week, also some pea sprouts I was anxious to see used in a way which would show off both their delicate freshness and their pungency, and finally, the homemade breadcrumbs stored in the cupboard above the counter are always waiting to be a part of the right meal.

The most tedious and time-consuming assignment in the preparation of this meal was the cleaning of the dwarf radishes; everything else was a lark.

• a sauce composed of tiny breakfast radishes from Eckerton Hill Farms, cooked in a skillet in butter and olive oil until they were tender but still retained some bite, removed from the skillet and sliced cloves of tiny Rocambole garlic heads from Keith’s Farm added and heated along with a small amount of dried chili flakes, then two tablespoons of the juice of a lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island introduced and heated for only a bit, that sauce then mixed with Afeltra ‘Vesuvio’ pasta cooked al dente, tossed with a handful of slightly-chopped pea sprouts from Monkshood Nursery and Gardens, mixed with lemon zest, salt and pepper, served in two shallow pasta bowls, sprinkled with homemade breadcrumbs cooked earlier until golden brown
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, F. Stephen Millier’s ‘Angel’s Reserve’ Pinot Grigio Lodi 2014, from Naked Wines
• the music was René Jacobs‘s recording of Mozart’s ‘Idomoneo’

I had picked up the last bunch, and only these four remained, loose, on the box; I should have grabbed every one, they were that delicious.