I did some cooking and baking this week, as well as fitting in a few reviews, which I have yet to write. I’ll start with the Citrus Soy Sea Bass that I made last Sunday and I’ll try to follow up quickly with Glutino’s wafer cookies and Pamela’s chocolate chunk cookies.
Last week Whole Foods had a special on Chilean Sea Bass, intrigued, I ran a little search on Epicurious and found an interesting cirtusy ginger marinade for sea bass. It sounded great to me, although I wasn’t sure how my boyfriend would like it. So, after my trip to the Green Market I got down to business, making the marinade and then preparing his turkey burgers and my hamburguesas de tres carnes.
Rather than spending more money on ingredients that I didn’t have I decided to substitute a pamelo that one of our contractors had given me to try. He claims that they are the original grapefruit, and opening this thing up was an adventure. The skin is super thick, and the fruit itself was about the size of a softball. One section alone was bigger than my ear. Opening it was exciting but the fruit itself was a little disappointing; it was dried out and crumbly and not very good eating. It did however serve very well in the recipe, where I substituted it for orange.
The bass turned out wonderfully, soft and flaky, almost as though I had cooked it in butter. I loved the bold, spicy, ginger pineapple sauce. My boyfriend ate the fish but proclaimed the sauce “too spicy”. I had suspected he might, but he told me to fix what I wanted, so I did. I’ll just have to save this recipe for folk with less delicate tastes. However, if you choose to accept the challenge, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Citrus Soy Sea Bass
½ c. pineapple chunks
½ c. grapefruit sections¼ c. soy sauce, gluten free of course
3 tbsp fresh ginger
1 tbsp sesame or other oil
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1- large bass steak, or other cut of bass
Put all ingredients, except bass, in the blender and puree. Place bass and marinade in a glass container, make sure the fish is covered, stir occasionally, let sit for at least two hours.
Heat a pan, cover the bottom with marinade, put in fish and cover with the rest of the marinade. Cover and steam until the bass is white and cooked all the way through. Time depends on how thick the bass cut is.
Remove the fish when it’s done. Cook down the marinade until it is caramelized.
Serve and enjoy.