For a very long time I’ve been thinking of halibut as a kind of holy grail.   I think it’s because it’s so minimal and because it’s a beautiful piece of fish, either as a fillet or as a double steak.   I also know how delicious it is, and I know how easy to prepare – and how versatile – it is.   It’s also because I don’t see it in the Greenmarket (does it ever show up here?), and because it’s almost always very expensive in New York City.  There’s also that tantalizing picture I see almost every time I open my copy of the “Italian Two Easy” London River Cafe cookbook.  The image is appears on page 194, across from a very simple recipe for “Halibut on the Bone” (on the bone, because the taste of fish, just as with meat, gains from being cooked with the bone).

I wanted to serve fish last night, but I had been unable to get to the Union Square Greenmarket because we had to be ready for a photo shoot inside the apartment.  When we emerged from that stimulating experience hours later, I headed down the block to our local Whole Foods to pick up something which wouldn’t require much time or assembly.  I can usually count on finding a good piece of wild salmon there, but even before I had gotten all the way to the counter I spotted it:   a display of double steaks of halibut, looking exactly like those featured in the Gray and Rogers book, except that they still needed the attentions of a cook.  The price per pound was exactly half of what I’ve been seeing around town for months, so I didn’t hesitate a second.  Besides, the halibut was taken from waters just north of our own temperate Atlantic  shores (somewhere off eastern Canada), and had probably not been frozen, while the salmon would have had  to swim all the way from Alaska, and certainly had been frozen somewhere along the way.  The price of wild fish, including salmon and halibut especially, can fluctuate dramatically;  I try to take advantage of the best market opportunities.

It was delicious, it was easy (and that includes the very good  – and itself very versatile – salsa verde which can be finished even before heating a pan), and I’m going to keep looking for it in the Greenmarket.

• double halibut steak, cut into two servings, seasoned lightly, brushed with olive oil, grilled for a couple of minutes on each side, then finished with a squeeze of lemon and served with green salsa
• salsa verde, or green salsa, of chopped flat-leaf parsley and mint leaves covered with olive oil, combined with minced garlic, capers, anchovy fillets, dijon mustard and red wine vinegar
• eggplant based on Mario Batali’s “”Thousand Ridges Japanese Eggplant”, meaning cutting the vegetables in half, carefully scoring them and spreading a mixture of olive oil, garlic and dried oregano on the cut side, seasoning each, then placing them on a hot ribbed iron pan for a few minutes, turning over once.
• the wine was an Italian rosé, Il Conventino Rosato del Conventino 2013 Toscana

• tuna steak from Blue Moon Fish, covered with a mixture of fennel seed and crushed dried chile pepper ground together, seasoned, then pan-grilled and finished with a bit of lemon and olive oil
• small parti-colored peppers from Norwich Meadow Farms, sautéed above a high flame until slightly caramelized, the heat then turned down, torn basil and a splash of balsamic vinegar added
• radish greens from Bodhitree Farm sautéed  in a bit of oil in which a chopped scallion from John D. Madura Farms had previously been softened, finished with salt & pepper and a splash of oil
• the wine was an Austrian rosé, Markowitsch Pinot Noir Rosé Carnuntum 2013

This was an incredibly delicious meal which incorporated several much-too-under-appreciated foods, including pollock, lovage, fennel, fennel seeds – and fennel fronds!  Did I say that the Pollock was really, really good, and that it tasted nothing at all like fish fingers or fake crab meat?  In fact, with its somewhat crispy edges, even without skin, the taste and the textures reminded me of the freshwater perch I enjoyed so much decades ago in the Midwest;  so maybe it was the flour?

• a one-pound pollock fillet from PE & DD Seafood, cut into four sections, dredged in seasoned flour, sautéed in olive oil over a fairly high flame, served with a salsa fresca (assembled just before the fish was begun) of chopped plum tomatoes from Phillips Farm  and halved cherry tomatoes from Keith’s Farm, minced garlic and shallot, chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm, a tiny bit of a very hot fresh pepper, sherry vinegar, salt, and pepper [basic recipe from Mark Bittman’s “Fish Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking”];   the vegetable proper was a separated bulb of fennel from Norwich Meadow Farms sautéed over medium high heat with garlic, chiles, and fennel seeds in a large iron pan until the fennel began to color, then, with the heat lowered and the pan covered, cooked for ten minutes, a generous amount of chopped fennel fronds added at the end [recipe from “Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe”].
• the wine was a Spanish white, Shaya Rueda 2012 

 

This is pretty much the extent of our  fast food practice, except for the nights when we have a good pizza delivered.

• the makings for this and similar meals are usually already in the apartment, at least in summer and early fall.  This time it began with a package of frozen Rana spinach-and-ricotta-filled ravioli, which I only had to cook for about three minutes, once a generous amount of salted water had come to a boil.  Prior to adding the pasta to the water I had warmed slivers of garlic with some chiles in a pan, turned off the heat, waited a bit, then added some quartered slices of a sturdy, perfectly-ripe one-pound tomato from Norwich Meadow Farms.  I drained the pasta, added it to the pan, and gently shuffled all the elements with a narrow wooden spatula.  The ravioli mix was served in bowls, finished with torn basil and shaved Parmesan cheese.
• the wine was an Italian rosé, Il Conventino Rosato del Conventino 2013 Toscana

 

 

 

• cod fillet from PE & DD Seafood, slowly sautéed for a few minutes along with a minced clove of garlic which had been begun to color in the oil, then flipped, with a generous amount of chopped parsley from Keith’s Farm added to the pan, and cooked  a few more minutes until done.  The recipe is described by Mark Bittman, in “Fish”, as a ‘Basque staple’. It’s as simple as it is delicious.
• zucchini trifolati, with two kinds of cherry tomatoes and chiles, finished with basil and allowed to sit for ten minutes or so, after a recipe in “Italian Too Easy“.  The sweet teenaged zucchini were from Berried Treasures, the Sun Gold tomatoes from Tamarack Hollow Farm, the red the cherry tomatoes from Keith’s Farm, and the Gotham Greens basil from Whole Foods.
• slices of crusty Truccio Saré from Sullivan Street Bakery down the street.
• the wine was a Spanish white, Naia 2013 D.O.C. Rueda, from Verdejo old vines.

There were two courses in the meal we enjoyed last night.  The appetizer was a serving of sautéed pimiento de padron from Bodhitree Farm, finished with a sprinkling of flaky Maldon salt.

The main course consisted of two really terrific 5-ounce ribeye steaks from Dixon Farmstand Meats, pan-grilled and finished with lemon, lovage (from Keith’s Farm), and oil.  They were accompanied by both green and purple okra (from Bodhitree Farm, like the pimiento), sautéed with red pepper flakes.  There was also a little radicchio, from Tamarack Hollow Farm, which was quartered, dipped in oil, a bit of balsamic vinegar, and minced garlic, pan-grilled, sprinkled with salt, and finally dressed with some of the reserved balsamic mixture.  The other contorno was a small plate of radish greens from Norwich Meadow Farms, sautéed in oil in which a garlic clove had been softened.

The wine with both courses was a Castilla-La Mancha Tempranillo, Venta Morales 2012

 

Until fairly recently, when I published food posts on this blog I preferred to use images of the food before it was prepared (and sometimes even without a meal context), for aesthetic reasons, and a few others.  I would still prefer to do these posts that way, but, if only for our own reference (much of the reason for the site in the first place) when composing new meals, a picture of the plated food can be pretty useful, if not very professional in my case.  Today, partly because I’ve become so fond of eggplant – of every kind, and in most every form – I decided I could do both, and especially since I had become enchanted by the eccentric curves of the last three in Nevia No’s stall at the Greenmarket yesterday.

Yesterday was our anniversary (our 22nd).  We would normally want to celebrate with a good lunch outside a favorite restaurant, but the weather didn’t really welcome the idea of sitting outside, and we didn’t feel like celebrating closed up inside, so we decided to do it up at home, in the evening, in front of the open window, with our roof garden beyond.  Two elements of the meal I planned required heat, but only for a relatively brief time, so the kitchen and the casual dining area adjoining it remained pretty comfortable.

In preparing the very simple meal I began by marinating a generous one-pound fillet of Striped Bass from Blue Moon Fish.  I decided to prepare the beautiful Japanese eggplant from Bodhitree, Farm ahead of time, so after I pan-grilled it I turned off the heat and set it aside in its heavy cast iron to slowly cool down.  The idea was to give us both a few minutes with a celebratory half bottle of Perrier-Joët Grand Blanc, and some elegant thin grissini.

The eggplant recipe, “”Thousand Ridges Japanese Eggplant”,  is one we have enjoyed many times.  It’s from “Mario Batali Italian Grill“.  I halved each of the screwy vegetables in the picture at the top, with not too much difficulty, then scored and spread them with a mixture of olive oil, garlic and chopped mint, then seasoned them, and placed them on a hot iron ribbed pan for a few minutes, flipping them once.  When it was almost time to move the eggplant halves to the plate with the fish, I turned the heat on under the pan, using a very low flame.

For the Striped Bass, a fish with which I was not on really familiar terms, culinary wise, and not wanting to use the oven last night, I turned to the internet.  There I found the recipe I used, from Food & Wine, only substituting the ‘sparking wine’ with white Vermouth, whose virtues are more commonly appreciated when on martini  duty (we hadn’t popped the champagne yet).  The fish, divided into two pieces, was marinated in a blend of olive oil, lemon zest, vermouth, shallots, chives, parsley, and thyme (holding back a portion of the mixture to be spread onto the fish once it was on plates).  I used a medium-hot flame to pan grill the bass until it was cooked through, turning the fillets once.  I finished them on the plate by spooning some of the herb mixture on top.

Our wine was a Côte D’Or rosé, Marsannay Rose, Domaine Bart 2013

 

This one is almost as simple as it comes, except for the multiple plates demanded by the slightly-messy business of flouring the fillets after I had brushed them with vinegar.

The flounder fillets from PE&DD, at the Greenmarket, were sprinkled with a good white wine vinegar (here Aceto Cesare Bianco) and salt, then lightly-floured, before being sautéed in oil.  When they were cooked through, I removed  them from the pan and placed them on plates. I wiped the pan with a paper towel, and and added butter and lemon juice, along with some fresh chopped parsley, quickly mixing everything while scraping the bottom of the pan, now over a very low flame.   I poured the finished sauce over the fish.

The vegetables, also purchased today, from what I have to describe as the honestly-saintly Norwich Meadows Farm of Zaid and Haifa Kurdieh (and their terrific helpers), was a delightful medley of young flat beans, both green and yellow, and tender purple snow peas. I parboiled them together, drained, and dried them, then re-heated the legumes in oil, seasoning them with salt and pepper.  They were very simply delicious, pretty much what I usually work for, and I was really happy to see the snow peas retain their color.

The wine was a French white Bordeaux, Petit Chapeau Bordeau Blanc 2013

 

This was an entrée of Swordfish steaks Salmoriglio, meaning the fish (purchased from PE&DD in the Greenmarket) was first sliced into sections about half an inch thick, then quickly pan-grilled and finished with a lemon olive oil sauce, in this case incorporating fresh wood sorrel instead of the fresh or dried oregano I would normally use.  The swordfish was accompanied by florets from small heads of orange and green cauliflower (from the Greenmarket’s Tamarack Hollow Farm), which were sautéed with chiles, garlic, fennel and coriander seed, then braised with small chopped heirloom tomatoes and finished with torn basil.

The wine was a sturdy Tuscan rosé, Il Conventino Rosato del Conventino Toscana 2013

 

 

Yesterday was Friday, and so, like good christians everywhere (actually, not including us, and, are there any left?), we had sea food – duck, to be specific. Oh yes, in the middle ages, duck, as waterfowl, if you could manage to successfully poach it from the local lord’s wetlands, was sometimes accepted as “fish” for the purpose of a proper observance of Fridays and other fast days (and this was even before the Jesuits were invented!).  Acceptable as “fish” on those days were whales and porpoises, even beaver, seals, geese, also ducks, and god only knows what else (and it seems she certainly wasn’t saying).

Nobody told me about any of this while I was laden with weekly visitations of fish sticks as a good Catholic child (also, who really knew what was in those frozen batons, although the answer may have been less outlandish 60 years ago than it is today), but the gods will surely forgive Barry and me our stretching the definition of sea food, because last night’s repast was heavenly.

After an appetizer of heirloom tomatoes and wild watercress, we shared a simple duck breast (by Pat LaFrieda, a total of .74 pounds for both of us, from Eataly) which I scored and covered in salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar, then let sit for an hour before sautéing it, finishing it with a squeeze of lemon, some terrific wood sorrel (from Bodhitree), and oil.  The accompaniment was purple cauliflower from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sautéed with red onion, garlic, and chiles, and finished with mint and basil (I hadn’t enough of the preferred mint, so I sent some basil in as reinforcements).

Largely because we still had wine left, there was a third course consisting of  very small bits of two very good cheeses, “Manchester”, a semi-hard aged raw goat milk (Oberhasli goats) “peasant tome”, from Consider Bardwell, and “Landaff”, a New England raw-milk cheese from Holstein cows, inspired by Welsh tradition, made by Landaff Creamery.  Accompanying them were thin slices of of hard-toasted Pugliese bread from Sullivan Street Bakery.

Our wine was a California Pinot Noir, Mossback Central Coast Pinot Noir 2012