flounder may be delicate, but it doesn’t have to be shy
There were plenty of choices available when I arrived at the fish stall on Wednesday (much earlier than usual). Since most had been on our table pretty recently, it was more a matter of what would best work with my meal plans otherwise.
I decided to pick something that would go with the clean sweet taste of the flowering bok choy I had bought on Monday. Since I was thinking of using more ingredients than I normally would with greens, ideally it would be a fairly uncomplicated fish, but one which could still stand up to strong flavors.
I chose a flounder fillet, and decided to intensify its delicate taste with scallions, lemon, and a bit of parsley. The vegetables I served were some simple boiled potatoes finished with an herb, and a ‘bouquet’ of yu choy sum (the flowering bok choy), to which I gave a bit of an exotic twist.
- one 13-ounce flounder fillet from Blue Moon Fish Company, divided into 2 pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides, coated lightly with flour (I used North Country Farms Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour), then submerged in a shallow bowl containing a whipped mixture of 1/3 cup of milk, one large egg from Millport Dairy, and a pinch of salt, removed from the bowl, fried in a pan with olive oil until golden, about two minutes for each side, transferred onto two warm plates, most of the remaining oil poured off, the pan returned to the heat, now turned lower, three tablespoons of butter added along with about a third of a cup of finely-chopped scallions from John D. Madura Farm, chopped thinly, some salt and pepper, all allowed to cook together without browning for about one minute, stirring, more than a tablespoon of lemon juice then added, the sauce now poured over the plated fillets, which were served with pieces of lemon (wedges would be far more convenient than the slices pictured here) and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Paffenroth Farms
- four La Ratte potatoes (fingerlings, buttery and nutty) from Berried Treasures Farm, boiled in well-salted water, drained and dried in the warm pot, rolled in butter, salt, and pepper, and a sprinkling of cut chives from Phillips Farms
- a bunch of yu choy sum (flowering bok choy) from Lani’s Farm, added to a heavy enameled cast iron pan where some bruised and halved Rocambole (Calabrian) garlic from Keith’s Farm and a small handful of pine nuts had been heated until beginning to brown, stirred until tender, occasionally introducing some of the water which the greens had shed after being washed, a dash of balsamic vinegar added at the end, then put onto the plates, where they were drizzled with olive oil and drops of lemon juice, and sprinkled with chopped thyme from Hawthorne Valley Farm
- the wine was a South African (Western Cape) white, Beyond Sauvignon Blanc 2015, from the Buitenvervachting wine farm (the vintage is ‘2015’, because in the southern hemisphere, at least in South Africa, the 2015 harvest occurs in February and March)
- the music was an album of Ruth Crawford Seeger compositions, ‘Portrait’, performed by Olivier Knussen