Miso Marinated Seabass, pea puree, bean and asparagus salad with balsamic reduction
Had some friends of our over for a nice little afternoon of fun on Sunday, started with a crostini topped with herb goat cheese and beets and followed with this new version of a recipe I've been doing for a while. Summer being summer, and Southern California being hot, I wanted to keep the meal fairly light. The miso sea bass is extremely rich as well so I wanted to ensure what accompanied it was nice and light. No pictures I'm afraid, I was being a bit too much of a good host to interrupt proceedings, which is a shame as I even 'painted on' the reduction with a brush.
The sea bass is super simple, just a marinade of yellow miso, sake, mirin and a touch of sugar.
Marinade
1 cup mirin
3/4 cup yellow miso
1/2 cup of sake
1/4 cup (or less) fine granulated sugar
Whisk it all together in a bowl and place the sea bass in for five to six hours. Yes, you have to actually remember you're cooking this tonight in the morning - and fish being fish also remember that you'll need to head to the fishmonger or grocery store when you wake up - or it's just not going to work!
Once you've done that, whack it in the fridge and look - you have the whole day to do something fun! Head to the Mall ; lunch at a diner, fishing on the lake, swimming . . . . really the World is your oyster. Awesome. Oh, anyway.
Pea puree - done a thousand times, useful in so many instances I'm now finding. It made a nice pairing under the sea bass this time around :
Pea Puree
2 cup frozen peas - cooked (I microwave them for two minutes or so)
10 large mint leaves
salt
pepper (both to taste)
olive oil
Throw the first four things into a mini-prep Cuisinart (I love my mini-prep), opening occasionally to scrape down the sides. When nicely pureed start drizzling the olive oil through the top of the mini-prep until you find a nice consistency - it shouldn't be a sauce, it should remain solid - but honestly it's all a matter of taste so I'm not dictating.
The asparagus / bean salad is a lovely little accompaniment on the side, taken from a recent Gourmet magazine I believe.
Asparagus/Bean Salad
1 sweet onion (play with the amount depending on how much bean/asparagus you're going to use)
1 tbls red wine vinegar
1 tbls Dijon mustard (grainy recommended)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tbls olive oil
1/3 cup flat leaf parsley
1lb-2lbs green beans / asparagus
Finely chop the sweet onion and put it into a bowl, add the red wine vinegar and mustard, whisk together and let sit for at least ten minutes. Meanwhile have a saucepan on a nice boil and add the beans to blanch for four minutes or so ; remove to an ice bath (or just cold water if you're not THAT bothered) ; blanch the asparagus for about two minutes and repeat the bath. Ice baths shock the vegetable to stop the cooking process as instantly as possible - i actually don't have ice around that much and find the cold water works almost as well - both should help retain the color of the vegetables nice and bright. Drain the vegetables on paper towels - meanwhile whisk the olive oil and parsley into the now marinaded onion mix, then toss the asparagus and beans in the mixture.
The balsamic reduction isn't a necessity to the dish at all, I just liked it from a presentation standpoint.
Balsamic Reduction
1/2 bottle red wine
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
Boil it down to nothing - and I mean nothing. It'll end up like paint - which is why you can drizzle a tad on top and around the fish, but mostly just paint it onto the plate for a pretentious piece of "flair".
Speaking of the fish - you might want to cook that round about now. Course the nice thing about this dish is that the assembly is all very easy and because the sides are cold you don't have to panic about getting everything on the plate at once while hot. Heat the oven to 400f, remove the fillets from the marinade (and sadly discard all that goodness) and place them on a lightly oiled piece of foil on a baking sheet. Throw them in the oven for approximately ten minutes or until the fish is looking translucent - remove the fish, switch the oven to broil and when the broilers blazing stick them back under for a couple of minutes. The sugar in the marinade will have left a lovely caramelizing goodness that the broiling will add.
While cooking you can spoon a decent heap of pea puree onto one side of the plate and flatten out slightly, and on the other side a nice heaping of salad. Paint reduction wherever your creative nature takes you! When the fish is done, remove and place down onto the pea puree. Now as a courtesy to our guests I like to remove the skin of the seabass (after marinating and cooking it peels off easy as pie) but the choice to do that is yours!
The sea bass is super simple, just a marinade of yellow miso, sake, mirin and a touch of sugar.
Marinade
1 cup mirin
3/4 cup yellow miso
1/2 cup of sake
1/4 cup (or less) fine granulated sugar
Whisk it all together in a bowl and place the sea bass in for five to six hours. Yes, you have to actually remember you're cooking this tonight in the morning - and fish being fish also remember that you'll need to head to the fishmonger or grocery store when you wake up - or it's just not going to work!
Once you've done that, whack it in the fridge and look - you have the whole day to do something fun! Head to the Mall ; lunch at a diner, fishing on the lake, swimming . . . . really the World is your oyster. Awesome. Oh, anyway.
Pea puree - done a thousand times, useful in so many instances I'm now finding. It made a nice pairing under the sea bass this time around :
Pea Puree
2 cup frozen peas - cooked (I microwave them for two minutes or so)
10 large mint leaves
salt
pepper (both to taste)
olive oil
Throw the first four things into a mini-prep Cuisinart (I love my mini-prep), opening occasionally to scrape down the sides. When nicely pureed start drizzling the olive oil through the top of the mini-prep until you find a nice consistency - it shouldn't be a sauce, it should remain solid - but honestly it's all a matter of taste so I'm not dictating.
The asparagus / bean salad is a lovely little accompaniment on the side, taken from a recent Gourmet magazine I believe.
Asparagus/Bean Salad
1 sweet onion (play with the amount depending on how much bean/asparagus you're going to use)
1 tbls red wine vinegar
1 tbls Dijon mustard (grainy recommended)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tbls olive oil
1/3 cup flat leaf parsley
1lb-2lbs green beans / asparagus
Finely chop the sweet onion and put it into a bowl, add the red wine vinegar and mustard, whisk together and let sit for at least ten minutes. Meanwhile have a saucepan on a nice boil and add the beans to blanch for four minutes or so ; remove to an ice bath (or just cold water if you're not THAT bothered) ; blanch the asparagus for about two minutes and repeat the bath. Ice baths shock the vegetable to stop the cooking process as instantly as possible - i actually don't have ice around that much and find the cold water works almost as well - both should help retain the color of the vegetables nice and bright. Drain the vegetables on paper towels - meanwhile whisk the olive oil and parsley into the now marinaded onion mix, then toss the asparagus and beans in the mixture.
The balsamic reduction isn't a necessity to the dish at all, I just liked it from a presentation standpoint.
Balsamic Reduction
1/2 bottle red wine
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
Boil it down to nothing - and I mean nothing. It'll end up like paint - which is why you can drizzle a tad on top and around the fish, but mostly just paint it onto the plate for a pretentious piece of "flair".
Speaking of the fish - you might want to cook that round about now. Course the nice thing about this dish is that the assembly is all very easy and because the sides are cold you don't have to panic about getting everything on the plate at once while hot. Heat the oven to 400f, remove the fillets from the marinade (and sadly discard all that goodness) and place them on a lightly oiled piece of foil on a baking sheet. Throw them in the oven for approximately ten minutes or until the fish is looking translucent - remove the fish, switch the oven to broil and when the broilers blazing stick them back under for a couple of minutes. The sugar in the marinade will have left a lovely caramelizing goodness that the broiling will add.
While cooking you can spoon a decent heap of pea puree onto one side of the plate and flatten out slightly, and on the other side a nice heaping of salad. Paint reduction wherever your creative nature takes you! When the fish is done, remove and place down onto the pea puree. Now as a courtesy to our guests I like to remove the skin of the seabass (after marinating and cooking it peels off easy as pie) but the choice to do that is yours!
Comments