Our first installment of my weekly fish dish features Red Snapper. As the name indicates, it is, in the wild, both red and bitey. On the plate it is neither, and takes up a gremolata nicely.
Because fish cooks so quickly, most of the time was spent getting the rice ready. I've become a fan of frying up the dehydrated grains in oil and browning them before introducing the liquid. The liquid in this case included some clam juice, to give it a seafood-y background. We had seafood bullion on hand, but I thought I'd save that for another day and for a heartier dish where EXTREME seafood flavor is called for. Otherwise, it was all systems nominal as rice goes, but for a handful of frozen peas towards the end of the cooking time.
To prepare the fish, I heated up a pan under a broiler for 5 minutes while I mixed up some oil, cilantro, garlic, onion, lime juice, and more clam juice in a bowl. Once hot, I took out the pan, added some oil, and then threw in the fillets, which started instantly to sizzle. After 10 minutes under the broiler, it was ready for the gremolata. I cooked the fish again, now with the gremolata, under the broiler for another 5 minutes, even though the recipe didn't call for it, as the cilantro sauce was by then much cooler than the fish.
It was a well balanced dish, not dominated by any one flavor (always a risk when cilantro is involved), and squarely within the fish dinner theme. The rice in my opinion was quite tasty, with an ever-so-subtle seafood dimension to it, and was something I will definitely repeat.
As I was eating it, though, I realized that I didn't bother to check the Seafood Watch status for Red Snapper. Sadly, looks like I made a bad pick; the Red Snapper is Red for more than one reason.
Next week: smoking a salmon!
- Nick
1 comment:
Oh wow, that looks so delicious! What is a "gremolata" anyway? That is one of those foodie words I hear tossed out on Top Chef and printed on menus, but I don't really know what it means...
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