Joshua Napoli

Well, we have a bit of a dry spell in terms of culinary exploits. For the past couple of weeks, we have been trying to match a recipe from Spanish River Grille in New Smyrna Beach, Florida: yucca encrusted sea bass, with cilantro-lime butter and black beans. The first try was not worth writing about, except that I discovered that cilantro leaves look quite nice when wilted in butter. Today, the second try was closer, but still somewhat disappointing. Here is what we did and what would probably result in a successful dinner:

First, we started with a one pound piece of schrod fillet. We settled on schrod because our fish monger was all sold out of bass.

I cooked one side of the fish in a buttered frying pan for five minutes. The fish had quite a bit of oil in it, and I let it make a fried, spattery mess all over the stove. Meanwhile, Julie grated half of a russet potato and poured warm butter on it.

Next, I transferred the fish from the frying pan onto a broiler pan using two spatulas. I painted the top of the fish with egg. Julie squeezed some of the moisture out of the grated potato, and then we put it on top of the egg-coated fish.

Finally, I cooked the fish under the broiler for five minutes. When I removed the fish, the potato coating was starting to become crispy-brown.

I wilted some cilantro leaves in a frying pan with a layer of butter. The leaves flatten out nicely, and appear that they would make a very nice and tasty garnish. However, I have yet to figure out how to transfer them onto the food. This time, I picked up the leaves individually with a knife. This way, I was able to move them onto the fish, however they always ended up folded in half. I was able to make a half-decent layer of green on top of the potato, but it would defiantly make a much better presentation if there were a way to keep the leaves unfolded.

Julie made the cilantro-lime butter. This time, we put butter, cilantro and the juice into the “Bullet” food blender.

We made basmati rice and black beans to go with the fish. I cooked the basmati rice with some good olive oil and a sprinkling of cardamom.

We served the fish with the rice and black beans. The cilantro-lime butter was served “cold”. We had 2003 Simi Reserve Russian River Chardonnay with the fish. It all turned out ok, but clearly we need to stick with sea bass. The fish was well cooked, but the texture of the schrod was clearly inferior. It was just too oily and slippery. The potato didn’t stick to the fish, despite the egg. The potato should be broiled longer or pre-cooked, since there were portions that were still uncooked and stiff. The green cilantro-lime butter spread was quite tasty. The restaurant had heated the mixture to spread it more evenly over the dish, but I think that it is better without being heated. I experimented with adding some sweet Hungarian paprika, but it didn’t seem to affect the dish much. It might be better in the beans. We’re close: next time, we’ll have something special.

Here are a couple of wine recommendations from the past few weeks:

Nantucket Vineyard Syrah: This one evoked memories from childhood… grape-flavored cough syrup. I fed most of my glass to our “Marble Queen” Pothos plant. The second half of the bottle waits in the fridge until the time we need it to flavor some sausage.

Bedlin Sparkling Wine: This is a nice sparkling wine, without any objectionable flavors. We brought a bottle home from Helen and Charley’s wedding. We enjoyed it for the second time with a chocolate fondue and various berries.