This entrée was very familiar, but also very special, the latter because of one ingredient, a garnish that didn’t want to be just pretty. It was also Good Friday, which still retains some specialness for this cultural Catholic atheist.

• two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from American Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature, but if left outside an oven they should at least be covered a little to retain their warmth); then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 7 ounces of beautiful blue oyster mushrooms from Ramble Creek Farm stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, split or cut, sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a pinch of a dried aji dulce pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, followed by the addition of a handful of remarkable basil sprouts from Windfall Farms  (noting that they had been washed in the same water as the farmers’ spring garlic back at the farm, and that I could tell) and a tablespoon and a half of lemon juice, the mushrooms stirred a little more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates to the side of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)
• boiled French fingering (Rosevale) potatoes from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, rolled in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, tossed with scissored chives from Lani’s Farm
• the Good Friday wine was a French (Loire/Touraine/Cheverny) white, Cheverny Blanc, Domaine de Montcy 2016, from Astor Wines

Sometimes the best dessert is a simple mandarin orange, in this case from a bag delivered by Garden of Eden Market earlier that week.

• the music was a very special performance [“The purpose of this recording was to recreate the context of a passion performance during Bach’s time at Leipzig.”] of Director John Butt’s Bach John Passion by the Dunedin Consort 

 

 

April 10

This blog has been silent for two months, so I can’t blame my neglect on the plague abroad in the land today.

Going forward however, I’m going to invoke the impact of the coronavirus as at least a part of the explanation for why these posts ae going to be more abbreviated than they were in the past.

Almost every ingredient will still be coming from our local Union Square Greenmarket, as long as it is able to serve our community.

I’m still going to be cooking almost every night, and I will be trying to make each meal as tasty as I can, and interesting enough to share, even if I won’t always get around to doing so.

So far we’ve been able to enjoy some pretty wonderful meals, thanks to my ability to continue accessing the sources that had made their equivalents possible in the past.

last night’s meal was one of the best, thanks mostly to the Union Square Greenmarket and the other markets in the city, the intense work and dedication of their people during these days, along with that of the farmers, fishers, bakers, and other artisans who bring us this bounty.

• the very fresh local black sea bass, from Pura Vida Seafood Company, was sautéed simply, with no seasonings added, other than local sea salt and fresh pepper, cooked perfectly à point, and also perfectly delicious, crispy too; the blue oyster mushrooms, also sautéed, were joined by a tiny bit of dried hot smoked chili and only slightly larger amount of a terrific seasoning pepper with no heat, then a bit of fresh lemon juice and fresh chopped parsley; the sautéed yellow endive was finished with a pretty simple balsamic vinegar butter and topped with a sprinkling of fresh oregano
• the wine was a Mâcon-Lugny Les Charmes 2017
• the music was a recording of Brahms’ complete string quartets and his piano quintet, by Quatuor Strada and Éric Le Sage

Surf and surf.

There wasn’t enough sea bass left in the bucket at the market, so, beating Paul to the punch this time (he usually asks, “anything else?” even when I’ve already selected 2 full portions of something, I added a bit of shellfish that had also been harvested from our local waters.

It’s now been 3 weeks since I prepared this meal, and I don’t remember whether I had found the recipe that I ended up (mostly) using while I was still at the fish stand deciding on whether to buy the mussels, or that evening, when I was ready to prepare the meal. My memory of the details of the cooking are also necessarily a little sketchy, but I can describe the origin of most of the ingredients:

• two 5-ounce portions of local sea bass fillet from Pura Vida Seafood; eight ounces of local mushrooms, also from Pura Vida Seafood; fresh thyme from West Side Market (Uncle Vinny’s brand). two medium orange local heirloom tomatoes that I’d ripened on the windowsill, from Eckerton Hill Farm; a stalk from the greens of a celery root from Norwich Meadows Farms substituting for fennel; equal parts Millport Dairy Farm yogurt and a local Organic Farms whole milk substituting for double cream; a bit of wild cress from Lani’s Farm substituting for the samphire or sea beans; micro celery from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• tardivo from Willow Wisp Farm, washed under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut in 4 sections lengthwise and a V-cut made most of the way through the root end, allowing that part to cook more rapidly, tossed with a little olive oil, sea salt, and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged inside an enameled cast iron pan over medium-high heat, one of their cut sides down, each covered with a couple of rosemary sprigs from Stokes Farm, cooked for a few minutes then turned onto a second cut side and cooked for a few more, and finally turned and cooked briefly onto the third, before they were arranged on the plates [this beautiful chicory can be served warm or room temperature after cooking]
• the wine was a Portuguese (Vinho Verde/Monção and Melgaço) white, Quinta do Regueiro, Regueiro Alvarinho Reserva 2018, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was Berlioz’s ‘La Damnation de Faust’, John Nelson conduting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, with singers including singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal

The 4 or 5 rows of colors and textures look great here, but I decided to also include a low angle detail image.

 

Even under ordinary circumstances it’s difficult to resist the aesthetic and taste appeal of sea bass fillets, but when they’re on sale, as they were on Wednesday, it’s virtually impossible.

This is also a very easy fish to cook. In this case it was merely seasoned with salt and pepper and briefly sautéed in a combination of butter and oil. The mushrooms that accompanied it were prepared after the fish had been cooked, although using the same pan, with the juices that remained.

• two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from American Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature, but if left outside an oven they should at least be covered a little to retain their warmth),

then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 5 ounces of beautiful chestnut mushrooms from Gail’s Farm stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, cut up, mostly into 2, maybe 3 pieces each, sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a pinch of a hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm and my last fresh habanada pepper of the season, chopped, from Alewife Farm), a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley from Phillips Farms, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic California Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates to the side of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)

• one medium head of tardivo, a very special chicory, a beautiful form of radicchio that originated in northern Italy, that I found in the stall of Willow Wisp Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket that same afternoon, prepared by washing it under cold running water, the moisture shaken off, cut into 4 segments lengthwise, and a V-cut made most of the way through the root ends of each, which allowed that dense part to cook more evenly with the remainder, the quarters arranged inside a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan cut side up, covered with a few thyme sprigs from Keith’s Farm, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil, baked inside a 400º oven for about 12 minutes, then turned over and cooked for some 8 minutes more, turned once more so a cut side is once again facing up, returned to the oven once again, but, this time for only a couple minutes or so, or until the stem ends were tender when pierced with a thin blunt metal pin (my all-purpose kitchen tester), removed from the oven [note: the tardivo can be served either hot or warm]
• the plate was garnished with a row of micro nasturtium from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was an Italian (Lombardy) white, Lugana, Ca’ Lojera 2018, from Astor Wines
• the music was an album of very early Mozart symphonies, Gottfried von der Goltz conducting the Freiburger Barockorchestra

 

[I had forgotten to photograph the mushrooms last Wednesday, so the image I used here is one I took last May, but of the same variety, and from the same farm, cropped differently]

It’s both a great fish and a luscious dish. Also, because of at least slight variations in the ingredients each time, starting with the kinds of tomatoes available, it never tastes quite the same. I think of that as a plus.

• the preparations began with a salsa, assembled about 30 minutes in advance inside a small bowl, containing one cup of halved golden cherry tomatoes from Windfall Farms, half a cup of pitted and halved kalamata olives from Whole Foods Market, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, 2 finely chopped fresh aji dulce peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm, and a little olive oil, the mix set aside while the fish was cooked: four 4-ounce black sea bass fillets from American Seafood Company, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed skin side down over a fairly brisk flame in a little Mac Nut  macademia nut oil (which has a higher smoke point than olive oil) from Whole Foods Market inside a large, heavy antique oval copper skillet skin side down, turned after about 2 minutes, the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed to 2 warm plates when done, 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan and allowed to melt, a couple tablespoons of chopped peppermint from Keith’s Farm and chopped parsley from Quarton Farm tossed in, along with a tablespoon or more of Whole Foods Market organic lemon juice, and everything stirred for a few seconds before the sauce was spooned on top of the bass and the salsa set aside earlier arranged in a cascade between the 2 filets on each plate, both fish and salsa garnished with micro red vein sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• six or 7 ounces remaining from a 17-ounce head of rosa di verona radicchio from Campo Rosso Farm, whose outer leaves had been used in an earlier meal, cut roughly crosswise and sautéed until barely wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which one sliced medium ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic clove from Alewife Farm and 2 thinly sliced French leeks from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm had already been heated until they had softened, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Dão) white, Prunus White, Dão 2017, from Astor Wines
• the music was Carl Maria von Weber’s important romantic German romantic opera, whose premier was in 1821, ‘Der Freischutz’, Mark Janowski conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony