Meeting the challenge: striped bass

There are many fish recipes in this blog, but I doubt that there is one for striped bass, and there is a reason for that.
Annalena is terrified of cooking this fish. In some respects, that fear is irrational, but ultimately, I leave it to the experts to figure out when fear is and is not "rational." It's a sliding scale, isn't it, and to use the same word that is used in much more dire circumstances seems a bit extreme.
So call it what you want: I should be cooking thsi fish more, but I don't. This weekend, I decided to change that, and in so doing, I got closer to understanding what the fear is all about.
When we speak of fish, at least as far as I could see, we speak of three classes: the "white fishes," like flounder, cod, monkfish, and so on. they are flaky when cooked, and not at all like meat. Then we have the "red" fishes like tuna, swordfish and, dare I say it, shark. Those deep divers with muscles, vasculature, and so forth, of which you can honestly say you ate a "fish steak." (Annalena does not include salmon here, because she will not eat salmon on the East Coast). Finally, we have the oily fishes, like bluefish, mackerel, whiting, etc, which really need to be prepared, in Annalena's view, the day you catch it, grilled, and served with acid. I do not cook these fish very often, and do not much care for them.

When I addressed my striped bass tonight, I realized that the "issue" is that striped bass essentially straddles all categories. When you cook it, it looks like a white fish would look, BUT... it has a musculature that says red fish. And... there is a layer of fat between the skin and meat that says, and smells "oily fish."

So, what do you do? Perhaps you can understand my reluctance to cook it, even though I love eating it in restaurants.

One of the benefits of the Internet is that information gets put in front of you so fast that if, say, you have a piece of striped bass, it's 4 o'clock, and you need to start dinner at 6, you can come up with a recipe.

Just sayin'.. And it worked. And here's mine. And I have some pointers for making striped bass.

Here are your ingredients: a pound of fresh striped bass fillets. Also, butter, hazelnuts, and parsley, and the usual, pepper and salt. Oh, and some white wine.

Beginning to sound like an Annalena recipe, huh? Incidentally, the white wine is optional, but not really.

Now, a digression. People ask me all the time "How do you put those dishes together? Do you ever leave the kitchen?"

Well, of course I do, but... sometimes, I'm smart about my kitchen work. For example, for this recipe, I needed toasted hazelnuts. I had them. And why did I have them? Well, some few weeks ago, I had a recipe that called for toasted walnuts. They occupied 1/4 of my baking sheet. So I toasted the walnuts, almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts, all on the same baking sheet. Try to think that way when you're cooking. And, if you didn't have hazelnuts, use almonds for this dish. Or pistachios. I do not think walnuts would work, but you might want to try.

Here we go. If you get your fish in a one pound piece, cut it into three or four pieces. Pat them dry and then sprinkle them a bit lavishly with salt and pepper. Get your nuts and put them in a bag, and crush 1/2 cup of them roughly. Put them aside. Get yourself a small piece of parsley and chop it. Put THAT aside as well.

Use a nonstick pan. ALWAYS use a nonstick pan with fish, and melt a healthy tablespoon of butter in it. When it's sizzling, put the fish in, skin side up, and cook them for 3 minutes. This is important. Keep an eye on the clock. When the three minutes are up, turn them. You won't be perfect here, and that's ok.

Now , here's where Annalena learned something. Her recipe said to cook the fish for another three minutes. After one minute, the fish began to give off the "here, kitty kitty " smell. You all know what I'm talking about. That's fat melting, and that means your fish is done. So, I took it off and put it on a plate. I then added the hazelnuts, and cooked them for about a minute. In went three tablespoons of butter, just melted into the nuts, and a medium slug of white wine, that immediately cooked off.

Pour this over your fish. Then, take your parsley, chop it, and put it over the nuts and you know what? You have dinner.

I've mentioned using almonds in place of the hazelnuts. I think you could use tarragon in place of the parsley, or frankly, most green herbs. I would avoid rosemary, and basil, as they are real strong.

We ate this with some dragon's tongue beans, a lovely new addition to the pantry which we will look at in due course. BUT... tomorrow, I'm going to talk about salads, something I almost never talk about. Specifically, we will look at fruit and vegetables, joined, in a salad.