Note to self:  This recipe has been a winner every time.  

 

This image, or some version of it, is becoming pretty familiar on this blog.  It’s because the recipe is as easy as it is delicious, and because it can adapt itself to any number of subtle variations, most of them involving the choice of herb.  It doesn’t hurt that it would be happy to make an appearance with almost any green vegetable as a side.

• two eight-ounce Long Island flounder fillets from P.E.&D.D. Seafood, seasoned, cooked in a pan over high heat in a mixture of olive oil and butter for a few minutes, turning once, then placed on warm plates, and a couple of spoons of ‘tomato butter’ [see below] placed on top and around them.
• ‘tomato butter’ made by cooking in melted butter a tiny amount of shallot from S. & S.O. Produce Farms, then letting the flavored butter cool slightly before being poured over fresh large cherry tomatoes ‘Cocktail Tomatoes’ from Maine via Whole Foods, which had been cut into eighths and combined with chopped tarragon form Eataly, the ‘butter’ then seasoned with salt, pepper, and a few drops of red wine vinegar
• tiny and delicious middle-March Brussels sprouts from Phillips Farms (what are they doing out there in Milford, digging out from under the snow some brand-new buds sprouting from last year’s plants?  dunno.), tossed with salt, pepper, and some olive oil, and roasted in a 400º oven for about fifteen minutes
• the wine was a California white, Sean Minor Four Bears Sauvignon Blanc 2013
• the music was Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8

I love flounder anyway, but I have no idea why Barry and I both found this fillet even more delicious than usual.  I’d even say it was the best I have ever had.  It was serious, with an intense flavor which included a hint of shellfish.   Flounder is normally a delicate fish, easily filleted and easily prepared, but I now have serious respect for the flavor alone.

The fillet I bought from the fisherman that afternoon weighed in at slightly over one pound.  That in itself was unusual for our table, but was it the reason it tasted so grown-up?  Or was it the fact that I sautéed it in both butter and, my usual choice, olive oil?  Maybe it was that tiny bit of Chianti white oak-aged vinegar.  Wait, I just did a web search, and found suggestions that Winter Flounder itself, a local species, is particularly desirable for its flavor.

I used a recipe I found on the LA Times site, and made only a few adjustments.

•  Long Island flounder fillet from P.E.&D.D. Seafood, divided into two parts, seasoned, cooked in a pan over high heat for a few minutes, turning once, then placed on plates, a couple of spoons of ‘tomato butter’ [see below] placed on top.
• tomato butter made by cooking in butter a tiny amount of shallot from Keith’s Farm, then letting the flavored butter cool slightly before being poured over fresh large cherry tomatoes, ‘Cocktail Tomatoes’ from Maine via Whole Foods, chopped, which had been combined  with torn basil, seasoned with salt, pepper, and drops of red wine vinegar
• cavalo nero (Racinato kale) from Keith’s Farm, braised with garlic, finished with salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil
• the wine was a California white, Rock.Face Chenin Blanc Clarksburg 2012

While we were in the middle of this meal last night I tweeted, “omg, just discovered fish, because that’s very much what it seemed like while I was enjoying these extraordinarily delicious little fillets.

Always trust your fishmonger. When you suspect a suggestion, or at least a hint, might be on its way, don’t worry about being steered toward the less interesting or more problematic choices. Listen carefully and be prepared to go for with the counsel, even if you might have had something else in mind for dinner that night.

That’s pretty much how I picked the fish for this dinner.

I was looking over the extensive inventory at Pura Vida Seafood on Friday and, as usual, I had started making a selection by mentally dismissing any fish I saw that I had prepared recently. Then I spotted 2 unfamiliar names written with a grease pen on one of the plexiglass fish case lids: They were advertising 2 kinds of flatfish. Both looked familiar to me, but their names, ‘daylight flounder’ and ‘blackback flounder’, did not.  Of course I had to know more.

To make the story short, Paul told me that the one or two-ounce daylight flounder (more often called ‘sand dab’) fillets were both firmer and more tasty than the larger – and more costly – blackback, which I’ve learned since is also known as ‘wInter flounder’ (I haven’t been able to find ‘daylight flounder on line). I was 99% sold. My only concern was whether a portion for 2 people would fit inside a single oven pan, if I chose the smaller (and thinner) fillets. I decided I’d probably be safe if I bought only 12 ounces, so that’s where tonight’s dinner began.

Oh, yes, Paul was right about both the firmness and the flavor, and the bounty of fresh spring vegetables that I found elsewhere in the Greenmarket meant these little fillets would be at their very best that night.

The daylight flounder turned out to be a perfect fish, of its kind, and also the centerpiece of a great, great meal. While it may seem like there was a lot of fuss in the preparation of the flounder, almost all of it was for lining the pan: The fish itself needed only a breading and a brief sauté.

Even the preparation of the vegetables, fiddlehead ferns and grape tomatoes, was pretty uncomplicated.

Two important supporting players were ramps and spring red onions.

• *eight small (one and a half-ounce) ‘daylight flounder’ fillets, as they had been labeled by Paul Mendelsohn at the Pure Vida Seafood stall in the Union Square greenmarket on Friday, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground pepper on both sides, coated lightly with local whole wheat flour from the Blew family of Oak Grove Mills Mills, purchased in the market at an earlier date, submerged in a shallow bowl containing a lightly-whipped mixture of one small Americauna egg from Millport Dairy farm and a fourth of  a cup of Trickling Springs Creamery whole milk (they use glass deposit bottles!) from Whole Foods Market, and a pinch of salt, then allowed to stay in the bowl until the accompanying vegetables had been prepared, and the remaining ingredients needed in the preparation of the fish set out, the little fillets removed from the bowl at that time, placed inside a heavy rectangular enameled cast iron pan in which 3 tablespoons of butter had been melted before several large fresh pineapple sage (salvia elegans) leaves from Stokes Farm, one section of a dried, crushed orange/golden habanada pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm, and 2 sliced spring red onions from  from Norwich Meadows Farm were added, sautéed over a brisk flame until the fish was golden, less than 2 minutes on the first side, one or one and a half minutes on the second, sprinkled with the juice of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market, transferred onto 2 plates, some micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge scattered around them
• *six or 7 ounces of fiddlehead ferns (I think they were the first in the Greenmarket this season) from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, washed vigorously in several changes of water until the brown chaff had been removed [this entertaining, slightly droll video, ‘How to quickly clean fiddleheads‘, could be pretty useful if you have a lot of fiddleheads – and more outdoor space than indoor running water], the very end of the stems cut off, blanched for 2 or 3 minutes, drained, dried, briefly sautéed with chopped ramp bulbs from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm and some chopped fresh oregano and thyme, both from Stokes Farm, and finally the ramp leaves, now sliced thinly, stirred in for 30 seconds or so, the mix seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and finished with a squeeze of juice from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon before being arranged on the plates and drizzled with a bit of olive oil
• *a large handful of small, very sweet grape tomatoes from Kernan Farms in southern New Jersey (Friday was their first day back after this long winter), halved, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, a tiny drizzle of white balsamic vinegar, and a little chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, served inside small ceramic prep bowls placed on the plates
• the wine was a Portuguese (Alentejano) white, Esporão V Verdelho 2016, from Garnet Wines

• *the music, as we were sitting at the table for some time, was actually 2 full albums, ‘Alarm Will Sound presents Modernists’ and ‘Acoustica’ by Alarm Will Sound/Aphex Twins, as a tiny memorial for Matt Marks, an amazing artist and wonderful human being, whose death was announced earlier that day

It was wonderful.

And it tasted as spectacular as it looks.

Interestingly, it was assembled with huge portions of serendipity.

The first thing I did at the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday was buy the second-last bunch of the first asparagus I had seen this season, inside the first farmer’s stall just inside the entrance.

My next stop was the fishmonger’s, where I picked out 2 beautiful fillets of very fresh flounder, the perfect size for a meal for two, and also for the large oval steel pan that I would be using for the first time ever.

I hadn’t intended to buy mushrooms that day, but I wanted to show Joe Rizzo of Blue Oyster Cultivation pictures of what had become of the ones I had picked up last week (seen in this meal and this). There I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what he had on the table that day.

These pink oyster mushrooms had to become a part of the meal I was assembling in my head. Joe told me a lot about them, including the fact that the color turns slightly brown when cooked, and that they should be cooked longer than other mushroom varieties normally require. What he didn’t tell me was how extraordinarily delicious they were, or that they would end up tasting a bit like, and looking much like, cooked shellfish (lobster, or, better, crawfish), at least when prepared with the recipe which became my next happy chance.

Tomatoes too!

Pierre Franey was a legend while he lived, and even in death (he died in 1996, at 71, shortly after suffering a stroke while giving a shipboard cooking demonstration aboard the QE2). He seems to have had a way of making superb meals accessible to home cooks, and this particular (undated) recipe, ‘Flounder Filets With Mushrooms and Tomatoes’, which I found while searching ‘flounder’ and ‘mushrooms’, would support that proposition.

Finally, I had a decent supply of spring ramps to recreate a recipe for asparagus that I had used a year ago, and just the right amount of firm, ripe sort-of-local tomatoes (substituting for Franey’s “4 ripe plum tomatoes”) to assemble his entrée, plus a few extras for the whole, like spring garlic, herbs, a micro green garnish, all of it from the bounty of local farmers at the Greenmarket.

The plate looks both traditional and modern, and that pretty much describes what the meal tasted like. Is it French? Where does it fit in the chronology of culinary fashion? The questions are interesting, but not really very important, although I think that with a very few refinements, and if the size of the entrée were hugely reduced until it occupied only the center of the plate, it could pass for haute cuisine (par un amateur). But then I’d have to prepare more courses.

• *this is my slightly-altered arrangement of Pierre Franey’s original recipe: 3 ounces of pungent pink oyster mushrooms (aka ‘pleurotus djamor‘, or ‘pink flamingo oyster mushrooms’) from Blue Oyster Cultivation, “cut into small cubes” (Franey), added to a large antique, high-sided copper pot in which one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of butter had been heated, sautéed over medium high heat until cooked medium brown (I’m acknowledging Franey’s admonition to “cook briefly”, but apparently these particular mushrooms have to be cooked beyond the stage most others would, or they will have a sour taste), 2 teaspoons of chopped spring garlic from John D. Madura Farm mixed in and softened but not browned, followed by 8 Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market, each cut into 8 pieces, one tablespoon of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, 2 sprigs of thyme from Stokes Farm, some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, the pot removed from heat and kept warm while two rinsed and drained 7-ounce flounder fillets from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, first seasoned on both with salt and pepper, were dipped, both sides, onto a platter spread with 4 or 5 tablespoons of black sesame seeds (I had no tan seeds in the spice cupboard, and as it turned out, for both taste and aesthetic reasons, I’m glad I didn’t), laid inside a very large, seasoned 17-inch steel vintage oval skillet*, over high heat without crowding, once another tablespoon each of olive oil and butter had been heated but not allowed to smoke, the fish cooked over high heat, turning once, “until fillets and seeds are lightly browned on both sides” (this is the catch if you’re using black seeds, so I could only use my judgment here; I probably cooked them only 4 minutes, but the time would vary depending on the thickness of the fillets), arranged on 2 plates and partially covered with the reserved warm sauce that I then sprinkled with chopped parsley from Phillips Farm, the fillets themselves garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• *some 18 or so asparagus from Central Valley Farm (10 to 12 ounces total), of various sizes, plus the white sections (green leaves removed) of an equal number of early-season ramps (the bulbs grow larger as their short season advances through the spring) from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, along with a handful of thyme branches from Stokes Farm, a little more than a tablespoon of olive oil, a little sea salt, and a bit of freshly-ground black pepper, all rolled along the surface of a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted in a 425º oven for about 25 minutes, but toward the end of that time the reserved green ramp leaves, roughly-sliced, were thrown onto the top and pushed around a bit just before the asparagus and ramp white sections had finished cooking, and when all was cooked the asparagus mix was removed to 2 plates and drizzled with juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Matt Iaconis Chardonnay Napa Valley 2016, from Naked Wines
• *the music was a  magnificent performance of Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 ‘The Trout’, with the performers Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniil Trifonov, Hwayoon Lee, Maximilian Hornunz, and Roman Patkoló (these players obviously really like doing this, and they’re very, very good at it)

 

*

The Fluke (sometimes called ‘summer flounder’), so abundant in northeastern fish markets at this time of the year, may not have the smoothest name, but its taste may be the most interesting of all the flatfish available locally.

It ranks above even the more mild (‘delicate’) flounders, in my opinion, although I can’t claim extensive experience with most of the huge family of Pleuronectiformes: The popular nomenclature of most fish, and especially those we eat, is confusing, and varies geographically (labels may be misleading and out-and-out erroneous), but that family includes many other fine food fish, like the other flounders, as well as the soles, turbot, brill, plaice, and halibut, a few of the some 500 species.

I’ve enjoyed many flatfish, harvested from several large seas (I’ve even caught fluke myself), but here on the northeastern Atlantic coast, I’ve always been very happy with both the taste and the relative firmness of the local fluke fillets.

But maybe the real star last night, and certainly the surprise of the meal, was the totally wonderful cucumber which Franca had slipped into my hand last week.  She called it a ‘bitter melon’ cucumber, but I had a hard time locating anything that looked like it on line using that name.  There are a ton of different kinds of cucumbers out there, and probably as many melons (the significance of my mentioning the latter will become apparent in the next sentences). Eventually, I added the adjective, ‘fuzzy’ to the phrase, and this variety finally showed up. It seems to be called ‘Carosello Mezzo Lungo di Polignano‘, and it apparently comes from Puglia, and it’s usually associated with Bari, on the coastal north. Elsewhere it shows up as “My Furry Cucumber!” I’m still not certain that’s what we enjoyed so much last night, because elsewhere on line there are other fruits that answer the description of our cucumber, varieties from the New World (cucumbers originated in Asia), described as botanically melon, but used as cucumbers.

• two fluke fillets purchased that morning from Seatuck Fish Company in the Union Square Greenmarket, seasoned with salt and pepper, sautéed in olive oil and butter over high heat until golden brown (2-3 minutes on the first side, 1-2 minutes on the other), served with a ‘tomato butter’ composed a few minutes earlier by melting some ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘, then adding 2 red scallions from Hawthorne Valley Farm, sliced, cooking them until softened and fragrant, removing the savory butter from the heat, allowing it to cool for 2 or 3 minutes, then tossing it with 4 ounces of ‘the best cherry tomatoes‘, halved, from Stokes Farm (which had minutes earlier been tossed with almost a teaspoon of chopped tarragon from Stokes Farm), stirred gently, seasoned with salt, a few drops of red wine (Chianti) vinegar stirred into the mix at the end
• a handful or more of organic arugula (‘Roquette’) from Norwich Meadows Farm, drizzled with a Campania olive oil, sprinkled with salt and a little freshly-ground pepper
• one large hairy Barese cucumber, ‘hairs’ wiped off but unpeeled, cut into bite-sized segments, sautéed in olive oil until lightly browned, seasoned with sea salt, and tossed with chopped spearmint from Ryder Farm
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Scott Peterson Rumpus Chardonnay 2014, from Naked WInes

There was fruit for a dessert.

• slices from a Lambkin melon, aka Santa Claus melon, and sometimes known as Christmas melon or piel de sapo, served with black California figs

• the music thorughout the meal was Georg Friedrich Handel’s 1728 opera, ‘Tolomeo’, Alan Curtis conducting Il Complesso Barocco