I was about to pick out a couple of gorgeous pink mako shark steaks at the Pura Vida Fisheries greenmarket stand when I noticed some beautiful triggerfish fillets in a bucket nearby.  Paul and his wife also seemed more excited by the latter, visitors found in local waters far more rarely than the shark. That fact, together with my memory of our having really enjoyed triggerfish on the one occasion I had prepared it, won the day – and last night’s meal. Triggerfish it would be.

By the way, triggerfish is subtly sweet (they dine on crustaceans) and the texture of the fillets alone would put it in a class by itself: unlike that of any other fish I can think of right now, the flesh is both quite firm and beautifully flaky when cooked properly. The picture above suggests as much, but out of sight is the ease with which I was able to run the fillets over, and then remove them to the plates.

The sweet potato greens however were entirely new to me. I had tasted them raw at some time in the week before, and I thought they were pretty wonderful, but that moment I had already bagged all the vegetables I needed.

On Friday, as soon as I spotted these beauties I knew what I would serve with the triggerfish. They’re probably delicious in almost any state of cooking, from raw to par-boiled and sautéed, and I’m going to try to find out for sure whether that’s the case, with what I expect will be repeat purchases. My only concern would be dealing with the stems, since they don’t soften as quickly as the leaves. On the other hand, a certain amount of chewiness isn’t really a problem for me.

• four 3-ounce triggerfish fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed inside a large, heavy oval, tin-lined cooper pan in olive oil over medium-high heat for only about 90 seconds on each side, removed to 2 plates, drizzled with a little fresh organic lemon juice, immediately sprinkled with chopped fresh dill from Keith’s Farm, with more dill tossed into the pan along with a few drops of olive oil, pushed around with a narrow wooden spatula, those juices then drizzled over the fish
• a third of a pound of sweet potato greens from Alewife Farm, washed, drained, sautéed, then briefly covered until wilted inside an oval enameled, cast iron pot in olive oil in which one chopped garlic and a small amount of slivered cherry bomb/red bomb pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm had first been softened, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled with a little organic lemon juice, and drizzled with olive oil
• 2 tiny new potatoes (probably red Norland) from Central Valley Farm, boiled, drained, dried in the pan, rolled in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and scattered with chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm
• one yellow heirloom tomato from Eckerton Hill Farm, cut into bite-size pieces, mixed with good Campania olive oil, Maldon salt and freshly-ground pepper, a few drops of white balsamic vinegar, and torn bits of basil leaves from Keith’s Farm, served in oval dishes at the side of the plates
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Karen Birmingham Sauvignon Blanc Lodi 2015
• the music was 2 early nineteenth-century works by Nicholas von Krufft, in the album, ‘Sonatas For Bassoon And Fortepiano’, with Wouter Verschuren’s 1810 Cuvillier bassoon, and Kathryn Cok playing a copy of an 1805 Walther and Sohn fortepiano

Nice picture.

This was also just about a perfect meal, for the cook and the diner, but to be totally honest, I have to quickly add that it gets that salute only by the standards and means of a modest kitchen and a quite-ordinary competence.

Also, it was the child of necessity, or more exactly, the happy outcome of a glitch in plans which is not unusual. On my trip to the Greenmarket on Friday I was disappointed once again in not finding John Dory fillets (they had sold out much earlier).  I’ve become accustomed to the need for adjusting to whatever might be available in the fish stalls (or those of any other venders) at the time I arrive, which is often well past the hour when the most [exciting?] fish may have been scooped up by its fans.

When I stopped by Pura Vida Fisheries this Friday at about 1:30 in the afternoon, Paul suggested triggerfish fillet.  I don’t think I had ever eaten it before, and I’m certain I hadn’t cooked it.  Apparently even the Grey triggerfish is somewhat rare this far north.  Perhaps because its habitat is along rocks along the shore, where it dines on shellfish (yum!), it’s not really fished commercially, but this is the time of year it’s most likely to be found, usually by anglers.

But then we both noticed that there were only two left inside the pan resting on the the ice, and they turned out to weigh only about 8 ounces altogether.  I decided that wasn’t quite enough for the two of us at dinner, so I added 6 large sea scallops to my ‘catch’, and added it to the fillets already on ice inside my insulated bag. I would sort out the menu later.

The meal I assembled, of two courses, each featuring some great seafood, was otherwise very minimal in both outline and execution, allowing the quality of some very fresh ingredients to star without any distractions.

There was another first last night:  I used my new [previously-owned] tin-lined copper au gratin pan for the very first time, employing it here to sauté the Triggerfish fillets.  I have never cooked with copper pans, and I didn’t buy it for display (I leave that to the seasoned-polished cast iron).  I loved the copper thing, finding it, at least in this outing, most remarkable for the speed with which it heated.

• six sea scallops from Pura Vida Fisheries, rinsed, dried, slit almost all of the way through horizontally, where they were stuffed with a mixture of 6 leaves of Gotham Greens Rooftop packaged basil from Whole Foods, one medium-size clove of garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, salt, and pepper, all of which was chopped together very finely before enough olive oil to form a paste was added, the stuffed scallops then rolled around on a plate with a little more olive oil, pan grilled about 2 minutes on each side, removed to plates, lemon juice and olive oil drizzled over the top
• eight very ripe, very sweet cherry tomatoes from Stokes Farm, washed, dried, halved, heated for a minute in a small, low, ancient Pyrex bluish-glass pan, seasoned with salt and pepper, added to the plates with the scallops

While Scallops are a familiar presence on our table, the Grey Triggerfish doesn’t even make it to our fisher-owned market stands very often, but now I know that it’s a great treat when it does.  I wrote above that this fish hangs out around rocks, and so, in addition to a great texture unlike anything else I can think of, it has an attractive, quite subtle, rather sweet taste, with a finish suggesting crustaceans.  It does indeed. Lovely.

Because it involved no elaborate preparation, the second seafood course followed the first with a minimum of delay. Nice.

I ended up inventing a recipe for the Triggerfish myself, because I had found nothing useful in any of my cookbooks, in my files, or anywhere on line.

• two 4-ounce fillets of Triggerfish from Pura Vida Fisheries, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed in olive oil over medium-high heat for only about 90 seconds on each side, removed to warm plates, drizzled with a little fresh lemon, sprinkled with chopped lovage from from Tamarack Farm and drizzled also with olive oil and/or the oil remaining in [yes, here the tin-lined copper!] pan
• the most delicious, juiciest cavalo nero, or lacinato kale, that I’ve ever tasted, from Tamarack Farm, braised with olive oil and one split clove of garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, which had previously been barely colored in the oil
• the wine was a Spanish (Vallalodid) white, Vevi Rueda 2014
• the music was the entirety of ‘Barbary Coast‘, Red Light New Music’s wonderful first album

It was to be a very simple meal that I could almost do in my sleep, because we had a guest, and there was going to be some serious discussion about some future construction in the kitchen. I expected to be pretty distracted, but I managed to put together a pretty tasty meal.

It turned out however that I was distracted, but not where I had expected to be: We were having so much fun that I forgot to photograph the main course. I can describe it however (there really wasn’t much to it), and I have many pictures from past meals that could stand in for what I missed capturing this time.

Our guest had brought a bottle of good champagne, which we opened once the more serious conversation was put aside.

• some rustic Italian breadsticks, Mario Fongo grissini integrali, from Buon Italia
• the wine was a French (Champagne) sparkling, Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Réserve Champagne, the gift of a friend

The appetizer was inspired by my visit that afternoon to some of my favorite Greenmarket people.

• a few ounces of water buffalo ricotta from Riverine Ranch in the Union Square Greenmarket, mixed with a very small amount of Trickling Springs Creamery whole milk (they use glass deposit bottles!) from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, a little bit of some good Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil (unfiltered, unrefined, and cold pressed), a pinch of crushed dried hickory-smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and one stalk of finely-chopped baby celery from Windfall Farms, with the leaves, the mix stirred and distributed on 3 plates, a bit more olive oil drizzled on top
• slices of really good garlic ciabatta from Philadelphia’s Lost Bread Co. (organic bread flour, spelt, malted barley, breadcrumbs, water, local Hudson Valley Cold Pressed Oils‘ sunflower oil, garlic, herbs, salt, yeast)
• the wine was a Spanish (Catalonia/Penedès) white, Huguet de Can Feixes Can Feixes Blanco Seleccio 2017, from Crush Wines 

• 21 sea scallops (a total of 20-21 ounces) from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried, slit horizontally with a very sharp knife almost all of the way through, stuffed with a mixture of home grown basil from Barry’s Artsy colleague Becca, one medium-size clove of garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, salt, and black pepper, all chopped together very finely and removed to a small bowl where just enough olive oil was added to form a paste, the stuffed scallops then rolled around on a plate with a little more olive oil, drained, then pan grilled in an enameled cast iron pan (they barely fit) for about 2 minutes on each side, removed to the 3 plates, finished with a squeeze of organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and a drizzle of olive oil,  garnished with some beautiful lacy micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• two bunches of curly winterbor kale from Tamarack Hollow Farm, washed, drained, wilted in a little olive oil in which 3 garlic cloves from Norwich Meadows had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, seasoned with salt and black pepper, drizzled with a little more olive oil
• the wine was a great Portuguese (Vinho Verde) white, Vinho Verde Loureiro, Aphros 2016, from Astor Wines

• the music throughout was an album evoking the southern Iberian geography and its culture in a remote age, the eponymous, ‘Granada (1013-1502)’, with Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations, and Hespèrion XXI 

Yeah, it was a something of a feast, although perhaps lighter than what would normally be associated with the word. We had invited two friends to dinner, to celebrate their return to New York, and we knew they really enjoyed food, and conversation.

I think we were all pretty lucky nothing was bungled, especially since the meal and the talk continued for almost 5 hours, counting a certain amount of lingering.

As the menu was coming together during the day I gradually realized that it would be almost entirely Italian, in fact southern Italian, and Sicilian, although with a few obvious, and some perhaps not so obvious, exceptions.

We began the evening with breadsticks, toasting ourselves with a excellent sparkling wine.

• the wine was a California (Sonoma) sparkling white, W. Donaldson Blanc de Blancs

The first course was a classic Italian appetizer.

• an insalata Caprese, with one large red plum tomato and one ‘green zebra’ heirloom tomato from Lower Hayfields, a friend’s garden in Garrison, sliced, arranged on 4 plates, slices of Italian mozzarella di Bufala Campania from Buon Italia tucked in between the slices, sprinkled with Maldon salt and coarsely-ground pepper, some torn leaves of basil from Lucky Dog Organic Farm sprinkled on top, and all drizzled with a Campania olive oil, Syrenum D.O.P. Peninsula Sorrentina
• the bread was a sturdy ciabatta, made with unbleached whole-grain wheat flour, from Bobolink Dairy
• the wine was a California (Lodi) rosé, Karen Birmingham Rosé Lodi 2015

The star of the main course was triggerfish, variously known in Italy as pesce balestra, pisci castaregia, pescepuorco, pescio porcu, pesce porco, pesce puorco, or mola, and in Sicily as pisci porcu, or pisci poccu, so it’s definitely Mediterranean as well as western Atlantic. 

[Note: From the front, the triggerfish looks curiously like a Boeing 747; go ahead, ‘Google it’.]

• four 6-ounce fillets of triggerfish fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed inside a large, heavy, enameled cast iron pan in olive oil over medium-high heat for only about 2 minutes on each side, removed to 4 plates, drizzled with a little fresh lemon juice, immediately sprinkled with chopped fresh dill from Keith’s Farm, with more dill tossed into the pan along with a few drops of olive oil, pushed around with a narrow wooden spatula, those juices then drizzled over the fish, which was then sprinkled with fennel flowers from Ryder Farm, and finished with micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• two round Italian heirloom eggplants, one a Biellese ‘Prosperosa’ from Berried Treasures Farm, the other an heirloom Sicilian from Phillips Farm, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds, brushed with a mixture of olive oil, finely-chopped garlic, chopped mint leaves, salt, and pepper, the slices pan-grilled, turning once, arranged on an oval platter, sprinkled with some more chopped mint, drizzled with a little olive oil
• four small sweet orange peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm, 2 pale green banana peppers from Lower Hayfields, halved or quartered, seeds and membranes removed, sautéed inside a heavy copper skillet wiht a little olive oil over a high flame until slightly cararmelized, with one seeded and finely-chopped small red Calabrian pepper from Campo Rosso Farm added near the end, the peppers finished in the pan, with the addition of chopped oregano leaves from Stokes Farm and a dash of balsamic vinegar
• the wine was a French (Bordeaux) white, Château Ducasse Bordeaux Blanc 2015, with an grape blend of 60% Sémillon, 35% Sauvignon Blanc, 5% Muscadelle, the large proportion of Sémillon, being unusual for the region

There was a cheese course, the portions very small.

• there were 3 local cheeses, each from Consider Bardwell Farm, ‘Slybro’ (goat), Rupert (cow), ‘Barden’ (blue cow), and one Swiss cow cheese, ‘Bergflichte’, from Canton Thurgau, via Eataly
• the bread was the Bobolink ciabatta again
• the wine was a California (Clarksburg) white, David Akiyoshi Chardonnay Clarksburg 2015, from Naked Wines

The fruit course was even more minimal than the cheese plate had been.

• striped yellow figs from California, via Eataly, and a few blackberries from Phillips Farm

The final, sweet, course was pretty Italian, at least until I added the maple sugar topping.

• Sicilian lemon sorbetto from Ciao Bella, via Whole Foods, topped with ‘Maple Candied Ginger’ which I’ve kept in the freezer for just such an opportunity, from a source I no longer can remember

The music throughout the evening was our conversation.

I didn’t buy it because it was shark, but because it looked so incredibly good in the fishmonger’s bucket, 2 weeks in a row. last week I chose triggerfish instead, because it is likely to appear in the market more rarely. This time it was the mako shark’s turn.

I have nothing against sharks; I like them, well, at least in the right environment, one of which I will now avow, is the dinner table.

I neglected to photograph the shark before I cooked it, but think of a swordfish steak, looking especially moist, and, this one at least, the color of a pale rosé wine.

The fish was extraordinarily fresh: At Rick Lofstad‘s Pura Vida Fisheries stall on Friday Lea Mansour showed me this short video, taken the day before, of the shark on the deck of their boat, the Olivia Jane, out of Hampton Bays, Shinnecock, only moments after it was caught. The deck is covered in squid, which appears to be the catch intended that day.

“Do you wanna try and sell this thing?”

The thing was absolutely delicious.

I used a recipe I have occasionally used with swordfish, and it worked beautifully, allowing the slightly sweet, moderately-strong taste of the shark to shine.

The preparation of the other 2 elements of this meal was already pretty familiar territory on this blog. As with the recipe for the fish, there were only slight adjustments in the herbs used this time.

• one 13-ounce (1 1/4-inch thick) mako shark steak from Pura Vida Seafood, rubbed with a mixture of fresh herbs (here lovage and dill from Keith’s Farm; tarragon, rosemary, savory, and sage from Stokes Farm; spearmint from Ryder Farm; parsley from Phillips Farm), all from various Greenmarket farmers) chopped together with sea salt, some freshly-ground black pepper, juicy garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, and lemon zest, and a bit of olive oil added to moisten the herb mix, most of which was spread onto the surface of the fish before it was pan-grilled, basted throughout the cooking process with some of the reserved rub mixture, removed while still not quite fully cooked in the center, divided onto 2 plates, finished with a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, and served with lemon quarters
• one firm but ripe non-heirloom tomato (I’ve forgotten the proper name) from Down Home Acres, halved, placed face-down on a plate spread with salt and pepper, removed, dried slightly with a section of paper towel, placed on the same grill pan as the shark, halfway through its cooking, turning once, removed, and finished on the plates with a bit of olive oil, a few drops of white balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with dill flowers from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
• two medium Japanese eggplants from Berried Treasures Farm, split lengthwise, scored with a very sharp knife, brushed with a mixture of oil, finely-chopped garlic from Keith’s Farm, and chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, pan-grilled for a few minutes, turning once, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with micro purple basil from Two Guys from Woodbridge [the basic recipe, absent the topping, is here]
• the wine was an Italian (sicily) rosé, Fuori Strada Off Road Rosato 2015, with Nero d’Avola grapes, from Bottlerocket Wine

There was dessert.

• slices from a Lambkin melon, aka Santa Claus melon, and sometimes known as Christmas melon or piel de sapo

• the music throughout the meal was topical, Vivaldi’s 1740 opera, ‘L’olimpiade’, Rinaldo Alessandrini directing the Concerto Italiano