Oct 02 2008
Saké Billy the Sea Bass
Some of the more exciting dishes we have done recently are fish based. We don’t otherwise eat a lot of seafood. It’s been a marked change in our diet, when we’ve suddenly started doing all these fish recipes because they need to be done. I’ve now met two of our local fishmongers. One of them complained about people coming in with requests for “fancy foreign fish” for recipes “written in London”… so he’s probably not the first port of call for the more exotic recipes we’ll be doing later.
At the business end I’ve cut up squid for calamari and now I’ve cooked a whole fish and filleted it once cooked. That was exciting.
- Saké Sea Bass with Wilted Greens
The fish itself was amazing. You can see from the photos that it was a big beastie, with dorsal fins that you could fan out in a most fascinating fashion. Unlike the original Billy Bass this one was not in the mood for singing - but then maybe sea bass aren’t singers?
The fishmonger gutted Billy here and I filled up the insides with shredded spring onion. Doused in soya and saké and popped in his little silver pastie, er, foil pouch.
(The saké will apparently be used for another recipe soon, though I can’t remember which one. I was greatly troubled at point of purchase - do I go for the ordinary-looking bottle or the swankier bottle of dry saké? Would dry be bad? They were 5p difference but in the end I went for the plain bottle with the plain contents.)
Once cooked in the oven I had to remove the skin. I had no idea what to do but Helen suggested “start at the tail”. This was definitely the way to do it - otherwise I would still be there, peeling off a scale at a time. I wasn’t able to completely remove all the bones because the fishmonger had cut some of the ribs away from the spine when he filleted it. Fish bones are a real pain, but that’s the price you pay for such lovely meat.
And it was very tasty, though quite plain as Nigella admits in the blurb. Given the choice I would add something extra to the side when making this dish. Her wilted greens were too wilted to really make much impression, I thought. So, what do I have to carve up next?
