It was an embarrassment of riches: I think there were 4 varieties of flat fish at the stand, and 3 other kinds of white fish. I love them all, but on Friday I chose the hake, because it was probably the least recent visitor to our kitchen.
That night I re-visited a familiar recipe, ‘nasello dorato‘.
And some vegetables.
- one thick 13-ounce hake fillet from Pura Vida Seafood Company, halved, dredged in well-seasoned flour (in this case, North Country Farms Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour) and dipped in one beaten egg from Millport Dairy Farm, sautéed in 2 tablespoons of Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter with a couple dozen tiny (which were all that remained from my stems) sage leaves from Eataly and a pinch or so of crushed golden orange dried habanada pepper over a brisk flame for a little over 6 minutes, turned over after 3, then sprinkled with some juice of a sweet local lemon from Dave Tifford’s Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, transferred onto the 2 plates, the pan juices poured on top, garnished with micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and served with lemon wedges on the side
- half a dozen small Yukon Gold potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled in well-salted water, drained and dried in the still-warm glass pot, rolled in a little butter, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground Tellicherrry pepper, and sprinkled with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
- mizuna from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted in a little olive oil in which one bruised and halved garlic clove from John D. Madura Farm had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, the greens seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, a very small amount of crushed dried crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, arranged on the plates and a little more olive oil drizzled on top
- the wine was an Australia (grapes from 10 regions within South Australia) white, Yalumba Y Series Sauvignon Blanc South Australia 2016, from Chelsea Wine Vault
- the music was the excellent album, ‘Joseph Byrd: NYC 1960–1963‘