bluefish baked ‘Greek style’, yellow summer squash, mint

It’s a great fish. This is also a great treatment for it, and this time I was fairly successful in holding back on the extras, something I admonished myself for in the post describing the last time I used this great ‘found’ recipe.

  • *one 17-ounce bluefish from Danielle, of American Seafood Company at Saturday’s Down to Earth Farmers Market on 23rd Street in Chelsea, rinsed, cut into 2 sections, rubbed with olive oil and a little Columela Rioja 30 Year Reserva sherry vinegar, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, placed inside a vintage oval tin-lined copper au gratin pan, sprinkled liberally with a very pungent dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia and a bit of dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi, also from Buon Italia, covered with thin slices of one small red onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, thin slices of 4 or 5 small, ripe, high-tunnel-grown red tomatoes from Lani’s Farm, some chopped fresh oregano from Phillips Farms, 8 or 9 pitted and halved Kalamata olives, and several thin slices of Whole Foods Market organic lemon, baked at 425º for just 15 minutes, garnished with micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge

  • two pairs of conjoined yellow summer squash from Lani’s Farm, cut into 2-cm rounds (‘figure eights’?), sautéed in a little olive oil for a few minutes inside a high-sided heavy tin-lined copper pan, turning once, until well on their way to being caramelized, then part of a length of a shaft of one spring onion from Berried Treasures Farm, cut into one-cm sections, was added to the squash and stirred until softened, the pan removed from the flame, the squash seasoned with sea salt and Freshly-ground black pepper, tossed with chopped spearmint from Keith’s Farm (I neglected to precede the mint with a squeeze of lemon, because I had forgotten, but I deliberately left out the addition of some pitted and halved black olives, because some of those were already engaged with the bluefish
  • the wine was a California (Carneros) white, La Tapatia Chardonnay Carneros 2016, from Naked Wines
  • the music was the album, ‘La Lira d’Espéria II: Galicia‘, with Jordi Savall, Pedro Estevan, David Mayoral, and Pedro Estevan, performing on, respectively, I believe, the Rebec, the Tenor Fiddle, the Rabab (Rabel Morisco), and various percussion instruments