red radishes

 

red fish

 

I know that only some of the red survives the cooking processes; it’s the taste that keeps me coming back.

• four fillets of red sea perch (a total of just over a pound) from American Seafood Company, brushed with olive oil and some chopped wild garlic from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, then broiled 4 inches from the flames for about 4 minutes until the skin was crisp and the fish cooked through, sauced with a bit of olive oil in which 2 rinsed, filleted salted anchovies from Buon Italia were heated until they had fallen apart, the fish finished on 2 plates with a drizzle of local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• Shuynkyo radishes from Lani’s Farm (which describes them as ‘hot and sweet’), some of the greens cut off and set aside (I had already used a certain portion earlier, and, surprisingly, after this meal there were still some remaining), scrubbed, most of them halved, tossed in a little olive oil with salt, pepper, and rosemary leaves, arranged in a ceramic pan on the stove top where they were cooked over high heat until some at least had lightly browned in spots, placed in a 425º oven for about 15 minutes, removed, returned to the range, a little butter stirred in, and the greens which had been reserved earlier, now roughly chopped, tossed into the pan and cooked until barely wilted, finished with juice from the same local lemon used on the fish  [note: next time I will cook the greens separately, since, in this process, they ended up pretty much negating the crispness the radishes had arrived at earlier]
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2015 from Naked Wines
• the music was various concertos by Antonin Reichenauer,  Marek Stryncl directing Musica Florea

on the counter, the three basic elements, before…

 

…and on the plate, as it was served

 

What fishermen in New York ocean waters call ‘sea perch’ bears no relationship to the fresh water perch I grew up with.  The brilliant color of its scales and its skin would be enough evidence, but, since its  pinkish flesh cooks up white, we could be fooled had it not been seen in its earlier state.

The French know it as Rascasse, but there’s some confusion with names on the other side of the Atlantic because it apparently belongs to the family, ‘scorpaenidae‘, which also includes the scorpionfish.

I think.

Anyway, it’s delicious.

• six fillets of red sea perch (a total of one pound) from American Seafood Company, brushed with olive oil and some chopped green garlic from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, then broiled 4 inches from the flames for about 4 minutes until the skin was crisp and the fish cooked through, sauced with a bit of olive oil in which 3 rinsed, filleted salted anchovies from Buon Italia were heated until they had fallen apart, finished with chopped parsley from Whole Foods
• a small amount of ‘Evenstar Smooth’ kale from Alewife Farm, barely wilted in olive oil in which one clove of garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, halved, had been cooked until beginning to brown, finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• five Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, halved, heated in olive oil with one chopped scallion from John D. Madura Farm, along with some chopped thyme from Stokes Farm and part of one red cayenne pepper from Oak Grove Plantation, finely chopped
• the wine was a Spanish (Rueda) white, Naia D.O. Rueda 2014, from Verdejo old vines
• the music was Carlos Chavez, Symphonies No.1 and 3, from the album, Chavez: The Complete Symphonies / Mata, London SO

Note to self:  a delicious dish, more so for being easy to prepare, adaptable for most white-fleshed fish

 

What is a Red Perch?  I think I’ve finally found the answer, but not before I had probably bored too many very smart people with the question while at a very happy Artsy happy hour last night.

I had been very attracted to the vibrant appearance of these fillets when I saw them in the Greenmarket that day [April 3].  I wasn’t certain the I had ever prepared them in my kitchen, and so naturally I was intrigued even more.  Also, and the price was pretty modest.  I asked Paul, who was standing behind the big ice-filled boxes inside the Pura Vida stall and offering these gorgeous ‘red perch’ fillets to a local fresh seafood-besotted public, to tell me what he knew about the fish.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I read the fish with my own eyes and put together some connections I heard within his narrative.  A few minutes later I was on my way home with four fillets (three ounces or so each), where I continued my investigation on line later that evening.

I quickly learned that there was no record on this food blog of my having ever prepared this fish in the past, so I looked elsewhere, still on line, for some indication of what kind of fish I had purchased.  My search however was surprisingly frustrated (there are tons of different ‘red fish’, perhaps just as many ‘red perch’, and, it seems, an equal number of ‘red ocean perch’). Finally, at around 9:30 tonight, in the recipe section of my own totally analog home library, I picked out a very thin manila folder which I had once marked,  perhaps both optimistically and naively, “Ocean Perch”.  There it was, staring me in the face, a handwritten note which pointed to a real recipe, in a real book, a recipe which turned out to be both familiar and promising.  I must have followed it some time in the past, even if I never made the blog, because the scrap of paper bore the significant notation, actually more of a scribble, “very, very good”.   A few hours later I was able to confirm that it really was.

The appearance, texture and the flavor of the fish reminded me of the delicious freshwater perch I had enjoyed while growing up around the Great (and smaller) Lakes in the Midwest – except for the herb part, and the red part.  I had even caught a few of them myself when I was little more than a toddler (although somebody less squeamish dealt with the hooks and the worms).

• four fillets of ocean perch, or ‘red perch’, from Pura Vida Seafood in the Union Square Greenarket, marinated on the counter for 25 minutes or so with a mixture of chopped herbs, minced garlic from Samascott Orchards, salt, freshly-ground pepper, and olive oil (the herbs were rosemary and oregano from Phillips Farm, parsley from Rogowski Farm, thyme from Keith’s Farm, sorrel from John D. Madura Farm, and tarragon and fresh crumbled bay leaves from Whole Foods), sautéed for about five minutes on the skin side, then two minutes on the other, removed from the pan and finished with a brushing of the marinade and a dusting of finely-chopped sorrel [the basic recipe is from Mark Bittman’s ‘ ‘Herb-marinated perch, cooked four ways’, which appears in his ‘Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking‘]
• four ripe Maine cherry ‘cocktail’ tomatoes from Whole Foods, halved and added to the pan shortly after the fillets were turned
• kale from Rogowski Farm, chopped, wilted with olive oil in which lightly-crushed garlic from Samascott Orchards had been heated with a small amount of dried chiles, then seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, and drizzled with more olive oil
• the wine was a South African White, Raats Original Chenin Blanc 2013, from Chelsea Wine vault
• the music was orchestral works composed by  Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the ninth son of Johann Sebastian

The three images below describe several stages in the perch preparation, beginning with the unwrapped raw fillets lying on a plate,

continuing with the fish marinating,

and ending with a view of the pan before they were removed to the plates

 

Like many nights, dinner at home was also a night at the opera.

A note on the subject of our dinner music: During our evening meals we often listen to a recording of an entire opera (or a large section of one, continuing it later that night or the next day). I could call it our version of the little-mourned 1970s ‘dinner theater’ vogue, a cringeworthy form of entertainment that is now fortunately just about defunct, but I’m not going to.

Yet I do think our arrangements of dinner with classical music theater, even without the visuals, beats any other way of enjoying the operatic art form, except for the right seats at a good live performance. I have to point out that one thing in its favor not available to audience members at a live performance is the pleasure of exchanging reactions to the work, either silent or spoken, while sitting across from the perfect dinner (and opera) companion. Also, being able to talk freely during the performance, and and to call for – and get – an “encore” of a particularly good aria or section from the piece. Oh, also, always some good wine at your seat.

Still, the food is always the evening’s raison d’être. Last night, while we listened to [most of] a great recording of Vivaldi’s ‘Il Farnace’, we were also enjoying a very good dinner.

The first course, although dominated by a meat, was uncharacteristically lighter than the main course of fish (noting that, had the order been the other way around, a heavy seafood dish followed by a light one of meat, it would not have been nearly as satisfactory).

• a little more than 2 ounces of Giorgio’s coppa dolce from Flatiron Eataly, drizzled with a bit of Trader Joe’s unfiltered Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil
• a small spray of arugula from Norwich Meadows Farm, also drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with Malden salt and freshly ground black pepper
• slices of the excellent ‘table bread’ (half organic bread flour, half fresh milled whole grain
  wheat, spelt, rye, malted barley, plus water and salt) of Philadelphia’s Lost Bread Co.

The main course was commissioned by Barry, who requested an entrée of a firm white fish roasted on the top of sliced baked potatoes, for a cold February evening.

For what it’s worth, there were 11 potatoes left in the farmers’ basket on Monday. I bought them all. They weighted exactly one pound. Every one of them was perfect. Nice.

• two 7-and-a-half-ounce cod fillets from American Seafood Company in the Union Square greenmarket, cooked using at least the basics of a recipe from Mark Bittman which I had come across many years ago, the cod washed and rinsed, placed in a platter on a bed of coarse sea salt, with more salt added on top until the pieces were completely covered, then set aside while a bed was prepared for them composed of a pound of la ratte potatoes from Phillips Farms, each sliced lengthwise by hand into 4 or 5  sections to a thickness of roughly 1/4″, then tossing them in a large bowl with olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a pinch of a dried smoked Scotch bonnet pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, arranging the potatoes, overlapping, inside a rectangular glazed ceramic oven pan and cooking them for 25 minutes or so in a 400º oven, or until they were tender when pierced but not fully cooked, and then, the cod having already been thoroughly immersed in many fresh changes of water to bring down the saltiness, the fillets drained, dried, and placed inside the pan on top of the potatoes, drizzled with a little olive oil and sprinkled with black pepper, blanketed with thin slices of 3 Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, the tomatoes seasoned, lightly, with salt and pepper, the pan returned to the oven for about 8 or 9 minutes (the exact time depends on the thickness of the fillets), the cod removed with a spatula (or, better, 2 spatulas), along with as much of the potatoes as can be brought along with each piece, arranging everything as intact if possible onto the plates, returning to the pan for the remainder of the vegetables

• a handful of very beautiful and absolutely delicious ‘frizzy mustard’ greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, drizzled with a bit of the same Trader Joe’s olive oil, which is really very good
• the wine throughout the meal was a California (Central Coast/Santa Ynez Valley) white, Rick Boyer Santa Ynez Valley Dry White Blend 2017, from Naked Wines
• the music throughout the meal was the first two acts of Vivaldi’s three-act 1726 opera, ‘Il Farnace’, in an extraordinarily beautiful performance led by Jordi Savall; when we listened to it one year ago I wrote that “..it was now at least our third hearing, not counting this one, from over 12 years ago, in which Vivaldi’s music accompanies Muntean/Rosenblum’s ‘It Is Never Facts That Tell’, the collaborative’s digital projection of a great world emptied and reduced to an enormous landfill, achingly beautiful, even without the music which accompanies its hooded figures”; we’re listening to the third act of the Jordi Savall recording as I write this the next day

[the image at the top, a still from the 1935 Marx Brothers comedy, ‘A night at the Opera‘, is from Film Forum, but the link is not loading right now]

It’s an excellent fish. Unaccountably, it’s less expensive than many of its culinary cousins (hake, cod, halibut, sea bass, tilefish, pollock, ocean perch, or porgy, among others) but demand and celebrity dictate these things in the food world, and the restaurant world, pretty much the same as they do everywhere else.

It’s also a good-looking fish, even when the original parts aren’t all there.

• two 9-ounce whiting fillets (a size larger than what I usually bring home, but that was what was available), from Pura Vida Seafood, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, placed inside a heavy tin-lined oval copper pan and prepared something like this Melissa Clark recipe, using over 4 tablespoons of a mix of chopped herbs (this time a combination of finely-chopped red sorrel from two Guys from Woodbridge, rosemary from Eataly, peppermint and oregano from Lani’s Farm, parsley from Norwich Meadows farm, and basil leaves off of a living plant from Whole Foods), briefly employing a little aluminum foil for a cover, and using both a small brush and a wooden spoon to repeatedly spread/ladle the scallion-herb butter (Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter) over the fillets, although last night the fish was finished on the plates with a garnish of micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge (because it was there in the refrigerator, and I love fennel anything).

I was originally going to serve only a green vegetable accompaniment, but I knew the fish would enjoy being around some boiled potatoes as well.

• two medium Carola potatoes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, boiled, drained, dried in the pan, cut into smaller pieces, rolled in the clear pyrex pan, tossed with a tablespoon of butter, seasoned with Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper, and sprinkled with a little zest from a local sweet lemon from David Tifford of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• one bunch of collard greens and half that amount of mizuna (remaining from what had not been used in an earlier meal) from Norwich Meadows Farm, torn into small sections (all of the mizuna and most of the collard stems were tender enough to include in the cooking), washed several times and drained, transferred to a smaller bowl very quickly, in order to retain as much of the water clinging to them as possible, wilted inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pot in which 2 halved garlic cloves from John D. Madura Farm had first been allowed to sweat in a bit of olive oil with a little crushed dried Sardinian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, the greens finished with a little salt, freshly-ground pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, David Akiyoshi Reserve Chardonnay 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music (well, it was ‘Good Friday’) was Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 (1903-1904-1906), Rafael Kubelik conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra [“Es gibt doch nur eine VI. trotz der Pastorale.” – Alban Berg]